


The Sacred and the Profane

by Auntarctica, sub_textual



Series: Such Divine Purpose [1]
Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Accidental Devil Trigger During Sex, Blood As Lube, Blow Jobs, Canon-Typical Violence, Dante is a little shit, Dom/sub Undertones, Don't Say We Didn't Warn You, Even during Devil Trigger, Heavy prose, Incest, It's actually really beautiful, M/M, Multiple Orgasms, OK the tags make it sound worse than it really is, POV Alternating, Porn with Feelings, Post DMC manga, Pre DMC3, Twincest, Vergil can be possessive, Very Enthusiastic Consent, Violent Sex, Yup you read that right, all the feelings, just saying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-01 09:25:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18333230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Auntarctica/pseuds/Auntarctica, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sub_textual/pseuds/sub_textual
Summary: There is freedom in the violence, in the transcendence of his surrender, as he gives himself up fully and recklessly, and falls into the ecstasy of his brother’s embrace. Falls endlessly into a heaven he can brush with his fingertips.--A story about unconditional love.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Dante is written by sub_textual. Vergil is written by Auntarctica. 
> 
> This fic originally started as a gratuitous roleplay that we decided to develop into a fic when we saw the quality of the prose we were producing, and thought that we should share it with everyone. It's ultimately a story about the beautiful, unconditional love between Dante and Vergil. It was originally supposed to be PWP, but somehow a pretty intense plot developed. We hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed writing it!
> 
> \--- 
> 
> _To enter in these bonds, is to be free;_  
>  Then where my hand is set, my seal shall be.  
> \- John Donne 
> 
> _I saw the monster in you,_  
>  sucked at his small claws, nipped  
> at the silvery whip of his tail. I saw  
> the monster in you and loved you  
> despite it, in spite of it, because of it  
> \- Sincerely, Joanna

It’s not the loneliness that gets him.

It’s the silence—an emptiness spreading inside of him, wider than the space between the stars. An emptiness that can only be filled by one thing, but Dante can never seem to keep his brother long enough in his arms.

Most mornings, he wakes alone, the space next to him cold.

But it’s the nights that are hardest of all, when he stands looking out at the world behind a pane of glass with an empty bottle of beer in one hand and hunger raging wild underneath his skin, but his brother is nowhere to be found.

Dante never knows when Vergil might show up. He’s about as predictable as the wind, always changing directions. Never settling in one place for long. Leaving behind only traces of himself in the dried sweat on Dante’s skin and the cum leaking out of him, his fading scent in the sheets, and strands of his hair on the pillow.

 _Stay,_ Dante whispers to him every time, but Vergil never does.

He’s learned to expect it—the leaving.

What he never gets used to is how terrible it feels every time.

Like a part of him had been torn right out, and the world never feels right until he has Vergil back where he belongs, inside of him or around him or somewhere close enough to hold.

And so he waits, hoping to see the silhouette of his brother in the distance.

Some nights, the waiting gets to be too much. The hunger becomes too ravenous, driving him to the edge of something that feels like madness, that only a good kill or fuck can fix. It boils up under his blood, volcanic hot and raw, and sends Dante out in search for a demon to fight or someone who can fuck him hard enough to take the edge off just enough.

It’s on a night like this, when none of the shadows turn up a good kill, that Dante finds himself pressed up against an alley wall outside a bar. There’s a hot, hungry mouth against his own, and hands roaming his body as he half-heartedly kisses back. He had thought that it would’ve helped, picking up a guy in a random dive bar that looked a bit like his brother if he squinted real hard—blonde hair so pale, in the right light, it almost looks silvery white. Tall and well built. Eyes as hard as diamonds, that cut the right way in the dim light.

But his mouth is nothing like Vergil’s.

He doesn’t kiss like him, either.

Dante’s not sure if this is really what he wants.

But he figures, it’s better than nothing at all.

*

He comes upon them not quite by accident, but unexpectedly nonetheless. He’d been following Dante that night on his mindless rounds across the city at a leisurely pace, cleaving to the shadows, intending to make his presence known eventually. When the time was right, of course. Vergil is nothing if not a believer in timing.

Dante was dressed as usual—only barely—and as usual, he had made himself easy to follow, swaggering through the world in his red coat like a human bullhorn, provoking with his presence wherever he could. Not that Vergil needed that. He could sense Dante in the pulse of his own blood, divining his direction by how it pulled his own internal tide. His brother was clearly on the prowl, looking for demons; a geyser of gore to baptize himself anew, as he did every night. But the city was quiet—apart from the humans, going about their meaningless, plebian lives.

At one point, his brother had paused beneath a streetlight and turned his head, lifting his gaze to scan the rooftops. In the slant light that hit his eyes beneath the pale swath of his hair, Vergil saw a flat flash of hollow frustration, as Dante failed to find the fight he sought.

Vergil felt himself frown.

After a beat, Dante moved on. After another beat, Vergil followed, with his hasteless stride.

It had surprised Vergil only mildly when Dante had detoured into a bar. His brother had a fondness for whiskey and beer, in that order, and was probably looking for a consolatory bottle to crawl into. Not that it would work for long; their devil sides metabolized alcohol at a lightning pace. But when he came out, he’d doubtless be ready for consolation of another kind.

For a moment he thinks about following; it would be nothing to walk up behind Dante at the bar, or the pool table, and cover his eyes, dropping a whisper against his ear and pressing his cock against his backside. But perhaps that would make him appear overeager. Vergil is patient. Vergil can wait.

The bar in question is a basement one, amusingly called INFERNO, set below the street-level wrought-iron fence work. One would descend the stairs, down a coved concrete vestibule painted with a street artist’s rendition of flames, into a pulsating, strobing grotto, visible through the open door. The name of the bar flashes above in jagged neon letters; hot blue.

Dante disappears into its mouth and Vergil lingers across the street in a dark alcove, watching the entrance with igneous calm. But it isn’t long before he feels the siren call of Dante’s blood, shifting, and something more—a powerful surge in his own. Dante is on the move again, which means there must have been a back door. Vergil can feel himself hardening beneath the textured leather of his pants as he quits the alcove and strolls across the empty street.

Now, instinct leads him into the narrow shadows of the bar’s side alley, where moonlight and streetlight are dashed and broken over the cobblestones, and here is Dante, just as he’d thought—

But he isn’t alone.

He is in the arms of a man, a man who is even now ravenously kissing him up against the alley wall. Vergil takes in the scene at a glance, with cool circumspection, tamping down the climbing ice of envy that is forming over his shoulders, the sudden blue fire that stirs his cold embers.

Dante had seemed restless, before; now he is almost listless, pressed back against the ancient brick blighted by torn-off posters, gamely allowing himself to be kissed and manhandled by this stranger, this unworthy effigy who approximates Vergil only superficially in a way that makes him furious. Inadequacy always does.

“Enjoying yourself, brother?” he asks, in a surly purr.

*

Dante almost thinks he’s imagining it at first—the sound of Vergil’s voice, slipping through the night, cool as can be.

But there’s an unmistakable shift in the air, a deep stirring in his blood that Dante had assumed was just the product of too much longing and too many sleepless nights, waiting for a brother who didn’t seem like he really needed him at all. It pulsates with a dark, visceral energy that instantly makes Dante’s cock fill out with blood, that makes all of the hairs on his body stand on end, as the slow, lazy rhythm of his heart suddenly turns into a roar.

There’s only one thing in the world that could possibly have that kind of effect on him.

_Vergil._

Dante breaks the kiss abruptly, eyes whipping down the alley.

His breath catches in his throat at the sight of his brother, like it does every time he lays eyes on him.

There he is, standing in the night, hair alight with the milky light of the moon, which casts a pale glow on his porcelain skin. He’s as put together as he ever is, his coat crisp and unwrinkled, his chiseled chin raised arrogantly. His eyes are narrowed and hard as they look at Dante and take in everything he hadn’t meant to put on display right here in the open—the depths of his desperation, how far he was willing to fall.

It makes something terrible and shameful burn down the back of his neck as he tries to will some sort of composure back.

“That’s your brother?” Dante’s would-be one night stand asks. Dante doesn’t know how he feels about the way the guy looks over Vergil—with the same kind of interest he’d given him.

“Yeah, that’s my douchebag brother,” Dante mutters through the thunder of his blood pulsing in his ears, before directing his attention—and ire—at his brother. “Hey, asshole! Can’t you see that I’m kinda in the middle of something good here? Did you really need to interrupt?”

Vergil’s lip curls.

Dante is a vision; he won’t deny that much, even through the profound chill of his displeasure. Even in another man’s arms. His hair is jaggedly disheveled, falling around his face and neck in shards of storm-tossed cornsilk. His lips are flushed; kiss-stung and full from whatever liberties this human felt entitled to enact. Vergil lets his gaze slide down the surface of his brother’s pale eyes in the moonlight. They are full of defiant indignation, the precursor to a rage that is intimate and familiar. His color is suddenly high—a faint flush across those vaulted cheekbones—but Vergil doesn’t think it’s passion.

How could it be?

“You seem a little feverish, Dante.” Vergil strolls out of the shadows, hand resting on Yamato’s hilt. It’s a habitual gesture; he doesn’t intend to draw her, not for anything so prosaic as this. “Are you sure you should be out of bed?” He puts a slight emphasis on the last word, sounding the d in a soft-yet-decisive way. “Perhaps I should take you home, brother.”

He ignores the man in Dante’s embrace, for now. Ignores his blatant appraisal.

His brother studies him—a long, hard look. His eyes drift down to the way Vergil thumbs the hilt, the silent threat simmering just under the surface.

For a moment, Dante considers the threat. Weighs it, then casts it aside as a bluff.

Vergil wouldn’t be so petty, or foolish, to draw Yamato here. Certainly not to use against a helpless human whose only crime was kissing Dante.

His ego would suffer too much for it.

Dante opts to ignore the sword, in favor of giving his brother a look of derision as he tries not to think too much about the implication of Vergil’s words—that he should have stayed at home, in bed, waiting for him, instead of out here in some alley, being ravaged by a stranger who looks at him and sees only his beauty, but none of the shadows that lie beneath his skin. That maybe he should just go home with Vergil, instead of to who-knows-where with this human, who could never possibly satisfy Dante the way only Vergil can.

Dante briefly considers taking Vergil up on his offer. It would be so easy. Effortless. They could just go home and fall into each other and everything will be as it should—

Fuck that.

Vergil doesn’t get to disappear for days, _weeks,_ without even saying goodbye, leaving Dante to wait for him night after night, then reappear and act like he has some claim to Dante at all, when he’s made it perfectly clear that he really doesn’t give a shit one way or another. When he’s far more interested in his ridiculous pursuit for power than he’s ever been in the only thing Dante’s ever really wanted.

“I’m good right here, bro,” Dante drawls, keeping his tone light and his posture slouched and unaffected, right up against the wall, with a man whom neither of them really care about, still grabbing at his hips. “Don’t you have a better place to be? You gotta have something more important to worry about than lil’ ol me, right?”

A vee forms between Vergil’s brows. It is almost involuntary, this mild tell of displeasure, and he is scarcely aware of it.

What he is aware of is his brother’s languid, sensual posture, as if he enjoys this man’s attentions. His nonchalant insouciance, his dismissive indifference. It’s feigned, and well, but not so well that Vergil can’t break his act. He very much wants to break Dante. Desire for his brother is thrumming, always, in the blood beneath his skin, and he narrows his eyes.

“I worry, Dante, about the company you keep. What else should I worry about, if not my little brother? It’s been too long. Leave this foolishness. Let me remind you.”

Vergil steps closer, circling slightly, hand still resting on Yamato, toying with her laces.

Meanwhile, this human, this badly-drawn refrigerator sketch of him done by a doltish child, is still touching _his brother_ , head bent and kissing his neck. His mortal hands are pulling apart the lapels of Dante’s coat to force more skin into the open and Vergil feels a low pulse as the coat rolls over Dante’s shoulders. He has always enjoyed Dante’s shoulders, brute and thewy as they are beside his own slightly more refined and sculpted ones.

“Whom Caesar loves beyond the love of women,” Vergil intones, abruptly, rough-soft. “He could resolve his mind, as fire does wax, from that hard rugged image melt him down, and mould him in what softer form he pleased.”

He knows Dante has no particular appreciation for Shakespeare, but he has always loved Vergil’s habit of elocutionism as foreplay.

There are many things Dante loves about Vergil.

Here is a list: the curve of his mouth when he lets himself smile; the way his eyes grow soft when he lets his guard down; the weight of his gaze as it follows Dante across the room when he thinks Dante isn’t paying attention; the sound of his voice when it takes on the sensual quality of night. The feeling of his fingers across Dante’s skin, the taste of his shuddered breath.

The way he arranges himself just so, all the layers of him coming together to make a perfect whole; all those fucking ridiculous little hooks on his vest he effortlessly undoes whenever they fuck; the soft brightness of his laughter bouncing off the bathroom walls at dawn. The way he lets Dante sprawl across him in bed.

The feeling of the edge of his sword as it slices through the air; the sharpness of his gaze that sees everything and misses nothing in a single glance.

How it feels to be in his arms, when he holds Dante close and gently pets his hair.

The sound of his name in Vergil’s mouth. The way he says it like it belongs to him.

It usually doesn’t take much for Dante to want to fall into Vergil’s arms. Usually, Vergil doesn’t even have to say anything, though it’s always wonderful to hear him talk. Even if he’s quoting poetry from some long dead bard that Dante really couldn’t give two fucks about.

That he even bothers to try at all means that he cares, and Dante will take that effort in whatever form Vergil wants to deliver it—whether at swordpoint or at the end of a sonnet.

But tonight, Dante really can’t be assed to give a fuck about what effort Vergil suddenly wants to put forth, even if he’s saying it with a voice made for the night. The kind of voice that makes Dante tremble on the inside, even when he tries to resist.

Where the hell was that effort when Dante was nearly going out of his mind with madness from a hunger that threatened to consume him? Clearly, Vergil wasn’t bothered at all by it. In fact, he seems just fine, if not a little _territorial_ , if the way he’s slowly encircling Dante and his would-be bed partner is any indication.

Said bed partner is apparently a little too drunk to give a shit about whatever Vergil is spouting, and his tongue hungrily strokes its way down Dante’s neck, sending an unexpected wave of _something_ down his spine. He lets himself shudder from it, knowing full well that Vergil probably hates it—the way he simply allows this human to manhandle him, slowly divesting him of his coat, teeth skimming over his collarbone.

 _Let me remind you_ , he says, as though Dante needs any fucking reminder of just how _foolish_ this is. But really, he doesn’t give a fuck right now. Dante feels like being foolish. In fact, that seems like a _great_ idea tonight.

Abruptly, Dante raises a hand and splays it against the human’s chest, giving him a gentle push to pause his ministrations.

“You know what, Vergil?” Dante says as he pushes past Vergil’s pale imitation. “Leaving this _foolishness_ is the best idea you’ve ever fuckin’ had.” He turns to look at the other man, then nods in the direction down the alley, away from his brother. “Come on. Let’s go to your place. My brother can wait for once.”

Dante pointedly turns his back on Vergil for the first time in his entire life, and slides an arm around the human’s waist.

(His heart thunders. His blood roars. He wants to kill something. He wants to _fuck._ He’s on fire. He can barely even _breathe._ He doesn’t know how he’s not shaking, but maybe he is.)

Vergil feels the cold invade him but does not move. His first impulse is brutal, Machiavellian; to show no mercy. _Destroy, do not wound._

_Perhaps I won’t come back at all, anymore._

These are the words on the edge of his tongue, but he balks at actually giving them breath. There are lines that should never be crossed, even in anger. And he is angry, make no mistake, though it shows on his face only as a slight tightening, and a diamond-like hardness in and around his eyes. He clenches his fist around Yamato’s hilt, where it can’t be seen.

He watches his brother’s back, the inverted chevron of his shoulders and waist, his easy swagger, his arm slung around this sloppy, stumbling human, this ersatz lover. He wants to lunge, to seize this meaningless creature, rip him from the grace and favor of Dante’s encompassing arm, kick him against the wall and run Yamato right through him. Make his brother watch his new pet die. Then do the same to him.

Dante will not die, of course—just bleed, and wrack, and shake, in a parody of climax—and resent him for his cruelty and anti-humanism. Dante will resent him, but he will also be gratified by Vergil’s reaction, and soon enough, he will soften, and relent entirely. Relent to the rare and undeniable affinity that unites them, the lustful blood-deep fraternal bond that can never be broken. Even as his jealousy climbs, his ardor spirals higher.

He dislikes this idea, however, as it betrays his emotions too much, and Dante will be quick to grasp that and turn it against him. He allows that it remains as a last resort.

He forces himself to modulate his voice, to strain his anger through a sieve. “You know that I’ve never been able to deny you any of your desires, brother, apart from one. If this is what you require, so be it.” Music from the bar pounds from behind the alley door. He glances behind him and pauses, with a wintry smile. “Perhaps I’ll make a friend of my own tonight. Perhaps it’s better not to be so...co-dependent.”

He pushes his hair back with a practiced gesture. “We can speak of this the next time I see you.”

Dante stops dead in his tracks.

He hadn’t meant to—he had fully intended to keep on walking, no matter _what_ Vergil came at him with. He told himself he could do it, that he wouldn’t look back. That he would just keep going, putting the alley and his brother far behind him, and let Vergil stew in the terrible feeling of being left behind.

But the threat in Vergil’s words means that Vergil doesn’t intend to stick around. He’s leaving again, but _of_ _course_ he is, because that’s what he does best. And to top it off, _just_ so he can drive in the hurt a little deeper, he’s going to actually go out of his way to find someone else to fuck.

Someone who doesn’t care if he stays or goes.

Someone who doesn’t love him.

Someone who isn’t Dante.

The thought drops to the bottom of him and Dante reels from the blow Vergil had delivered so effortlessly. It cracks wide open what Dante had futilely tried to bury within him—the terrible, raw need that he can never seem to fight, no matter how hard he tries. It rises up relentlessly, until the ache is all Dante can feel, along with the fire racing underneath his skin as it tears its way through his blood and emerges as white hot rage that has him on the edge of trembling.

“On second thought…” Dante says, as his arm slips down from around his chosen partner for the night, and he slowly turns. There’s a part of him that feels triumphant when he takes note of the way Vergil’s eyes cut. The quiet, dangerous anger brewing just beneath the cold, hard surface of his gaze.

Yeah, Vergil’s mad alright.

Dante hopes it hurts. He hopes it fucking _burns._

“Maybe you need an ass kicking first.”

A storm flashes in Dante’s eyes as they cut across the alley between them—dark and furious and wild. And within the space between two breaths and one beat of his heart, Dante has Rebellion in his hand.

He charges.


	2. Chapter 2

Vergil smiles. It’s not quite a smile of triumph, or relief, or satisfaction, or delight, but some bastard amalgamation. His anger drops a notch, and lust claims its place instead.

He can tell from the outset that Dante is off his game, making up for his momentary shortcomings with blast and bravado and sheer brutality, but it’s a glorious thing to behold in any case—his brother lunging at him with such blatant fury, red coat flaring, muscles flexing, the expression in his eyes heedless and harrowing, so full of hate that it can only be love. Something swells deep inside him, and outside as well.

Vergil has just enough time to breathe out, to appreciate the sight, and then Dante is upon him, all at once, winging at him with a wild swing of Rebellion. He draws Yamato with a fluid sweep and blocks his onslaught, bringing them to an impasse. Steel grinds steel. Their eyes are steel against steel, as well. He stares into his brother’s eyes and feels his cock stiffen below.

Dante is pressing in for all he’s worth, teeth gritted in a feral snarl, and Vergil feels his chest burst into roses in response. He braces himself against his brother, braces his boots into the cobblestone as they struggle, blade to blade. _As it should be._

After a moment Dante slips up, loses traction, and he is able to swing him off, stagger him to the side. The impasse is broken, but Dante recovers quickly, stumbling back into a ready stance, glaring at him in breathless, gorgeous rage. Vergil’s heart beats with quiet love for his brother as he advances, ready to slash him into submission.

“You’re thinking with the wrong sword, Dante.” His breath is elevated, giving his voice more of a velvet rasp than usual. “Drunk, hard and angry is no way to win a battle.”

The truth is: Dante hadn’t really been thinking at all when he decided to charge at his brother. He didn’t really have the idea of winning in mind; he only cared about delivering as much hurt as possible. It doesn’t really matter to him who actually wins, or if there even is a winner, so long as he gets to kick his brother’s arrogant, pompous ass to kingdom come.

Dante would be perfectly satisfied to see Vergil knocked down a few notches.

Hell, maybe he’ll even ruin that fancy coat in the process.

Wipe that smug smile off his brother’s gorgeous face.

But of course, Vergil wouldn’t understand that at all. He only ever sees every confrontation in shades of victory or loss, and only cares about the outcome—not its course. He doesn’t quite revel the same way Dante does in the thrill of the fight; the rush of adrenaline, pounding like war drums in his blood; the taste of sweat and the copper tang of blood; never quite knowing if he’ll win or not.

The way it makes him light up inside. The way it makes that dark, shivery thing that crouches in the shadows inside of him come alive. It almost drowns out the silence, the yawning absence, that only his brother can ever seem to truly fill.

“Who said anything about winning? I just wanted to kick your ass,” Dante responds with as much irreverence as he can muster, and a careless grin. He takes the calculated risk of swinging out of his ready stance to let Rebellion sweep across his shoulders as he forces the trembling lines of his body to settle into a deceptively lazy slouch. Trying his best to ignore the raging erection pressing up against the front of his pants.

“Fuck this, I’m out. I didn’t sign up for family drama,” the human says before he turns tail.

Dante doesn’t spare him a second glance—he knows better than to take his eyes off his brother when Vergil is advancing with Yamato in hand.

Vergil’s eyes glint, sharp and light like the edge of his sword.

Dante’s cock gives a treacherous throb in response.

The traitor.

“Come on Verge,” Dante calls out as he extends his arm, crooking his fingers in a beckoning gesture. “Let’s party.”

No sooner than the words leave his mouth, Dante tears across the cobblestone in a streak of furious red, driving Rebellion straight at Vergil’s feet, with the intent of sweeping him straight up into the air.

“Ha.” Vergil’s exclamation is a sharp pulse of breath, a habitual monosyllable expressing many things, all of which he knows Dante can parse.

He shifts this time, so Dante does not quite send him flying; his brother’s sword makes a ragged clanging as it drags across the cobblestones, sending a pleasurable chill up his spine. Dante is already rallying, ready with another strike. What his brother lacks in discipline and art, he very nearly makes up for in undiluted vigor.

He is relentless when he _needs_.

This time he does knock Vergil back, sending him into the wall. The impact is hard, breath-stealing. Dante follows, ready to capitalize on his hit. Vergil galvanizes, evades the business end of Rebellion as it comes hurtling at him. He sidesteps and counters, swinging Yamato in a deceptively lazy arc that clips his brother’s chin and staggers him back. “Well done, Dante,” he murmurs on the underside of his breath. “Quite in spite of your current deficits.”

Dante slashes him across his chest and arm for his trouble, drawing a rooster tail of blood. His blood lands on his brother’s face, his lips, and he licks at it like it’s honey, gazing at Vergil with glazed, battle-hungry eyes. Vergil smiles. It’s as involuntary as the tightening in his loins.

They square off, distance briefly restored. Abruptly, Vergil rushes forward in a feint, and Dante falls for it. He’s too eager and topheavy in his reactions right now; all the blood in his brain has headed to more southerly climes.

He realizes his mistake quickly; he always does—but it’s more than enough of a lapse for Vergil to insinuate his particular brand of retaliation and reversal. He knocks Rebellion out of Dante’s hand with a clean, deft strike and sends it clattering onto the alley stones. He is disarmed. Naked. Vergil’s eyes narrow, and he surges forward. Dante goes to reach for his guns, but Vergil is faster, sleeker, deadlier. He sends Yamato singing straight into his brother’s body with the ease of parting water.

The shock of it is devastating.

Almost enough to make Dante drop his guns, but not quite.

In the same moment when his brother impales him with his blade, Dante manages to get off a single double shot. The bullets go sailing into the opposing alley wall, far off their intended course. Dante staggers back, gasping as Vergil impassively jerks Yamato back with a single, elegant flick of the wrist.

Dante feels every inch of his brother’s blade as it slides back out of him in a long, excruciating stroke, sending a splatter of blood with it onto the cobblestones below.

Vergil shouldn’t look so terrifyingly beautiful with Dante’s blood on his face, but somehow he does.

Dante’s too overwhelmed to be pissed about that fact.

The pain screaming through his body is exquisite, a visceral beast that thunders through his veins and shoots straight down to his cock, sending out a hot rush of slick with it as his body cries out for _more._

Dante’s not sure if the tremble in his thighs has more to do with his unbearable arousal or with the fact that he’d just been _stabbed_ by his own asshole of a brother. And he’s really not sure what’s worse—the fact that Vergil would actually run him through like this without a second thought, or that his body seems to revel in it, his blood resonating with his brother’s.

He doesn’t give himself time to think much more on it, spinning Ebony and Ivory in his hands as he whips them back up and fires at Vergil point blank. He knows that the shots will never hit their mark—Vergil’s far too good for that, and he certainly doesn’t let Dante down, slicing the bullets straight in half mid-air. The fragments _clink_ lightly as they hit the cobblestone, echoing down the length of the alley.

The only warning Dante gets before his brother comes at him again is an unimpressed arch of Vergil’s eyebrow and the glint of his narrowed eyes.

Dante tries to jump back to evade, but he’d miscalculated the distance between himself and the narrow walls of the alley, knocked so far off his game that he hadn’t paid enough attention to his surroundings. He can’t stop the broken, ragged sound that’s as much pain as it is pleasure, as it rushes out of his throat, or the way his eyes scrunch shut as his back slams up against the brick wall and his brother penetrates him ruthlessly, pinning him in place with his sword.

Expertly missing all of his organs in the process.

Dante’s guns slide from his fingers and drop to the ground with sharp clangs of metal as he trembles at the end of Vergil’s blade, which is buried in him all the way to the hilt. He wraps his shaking fingers around the handle, lustblown eyes glazed heavy with desire and burning with feral rage, as they rise up to meet the pale cool ocean of his brother’s eyes.

For once, he doesn’t have a witty comeback.

He can barely even _think_ past the ravenous, agonizing need inside him.

“I seem to have bored your friend,” Vergil murmurs. “And spoiled your evening, brother.”

He leans in, easing his gloved hand over Dante’s where it grasps Yamato’s hilt, reinforcing, caressing. His brother’s fingers are trembling; he stills them with his own.

“My apologies.”

Dante is uncharacteristically speechless, and Vergil frowns. He studies his brother’s beauty at close range, now that he has him pinned like a butterfly. His breathing is shallow; slow and rough. Vergil eyes the revolutions of breath that animate his strapping chest, admiring the way it heaves above his merciless incursion.

“Perhaps there is some way I might make amends.”

Vergil braces one hand against the wall and cages Dante against the brick. He leans in to kiss his shuddering mouth, as his hand usurps Dante’s on the grip of the katana. He meets no resistance—Dante’s mouth is pliant, surprisingly willing, if not a little vicious.

The kiss is immediately bruising, just south of the edge of desperate. Dante’s tongue eagerly strokes over the seam of Vergil’s mouth for entry. His teeth nip sharply at the plump swell of Vergil’s lower lip, and he doesn’t quite manage to swallow the shaky moan growing at the back of his throat. Dante’s flesh is already healing around the blade; it will slice him anew when Vergil pulls it out. There is nothing to be done about that, but to do it quickly. “Like ripping off a band-aid,” Vergil whispers. “You remember.”

“Fuck, just do it already,” Dante groans against Vergil’s mouth, already half drunk on the familiar taste of his brother sweeping across his tongue after just one kiss. It’s more effective than any weapon could ever hope to be—Vergil’s mouth against his. Vergil’s breath in his lungs. The intoxicating tang of Vergil’s blood on his tongue.

There’s a part of Dante that thinks he probably shouldn’t be doing this, giving in so fast. That he should bite down hard enough to draw blood instead of just giving his brother a love nip. Make it hurt the way he so richly deserves. Make Vergil think that he doesn’t really need or even want what he’s offering.

But the small, defiant voice inside him that tells him to rebel, that wants to keep the fight going, that doesn’t want to surrender at all, is drowned out by the deafening roar of desire that Dante can’t hold back. Vergil kisses him and what flimsy dam he had tried to erect to hold back the flood bursts wide open and the tide pours through, dragging him right under with it.

He falls into it the way he does every time.

Dante lets go of the sword, and his breath catches in his throat when Vergil’s fingers tighten around the hilt and he pulls. The pain is immediate, searing, and so fucking good that it makes Dante shudder, his breath gusting out of him in rough, heavy pants as he instinctively reaches out to clutch at his brother, bloodied fingers tightening in the thick fabric of his coat. Without Yamato to keep him in place, Dante sags against the wall. His knees feel like jelly. He’s not sure how he’s still managing to stand upright.

He staggers forward against his brother. Crashes into him, hands grasping, as he bows his head forward until their brows touch. “You’re late,” he finally whispers with his eyes closed.

It’s probably the first truly honest thing he’s said all night.

Something inside Vergil shudders as his brother’s full weight collapses against him, hands clenched in his lapels. He loops an arm around his back to hold him upright.

“Forgive me,” he intones. “Brother.”

Vergil cards his hand through Dante’s hair. It’s soft as his own, but when he turns his face into it, he’s suffused with his brother’s scent.

“Time escaped me. I’ve been tending to matters, when I should have been tending to you.”

He cups Dante’s jaw, feeling the faint grit of his stubble, gazing down into his feverish eyes.

“Shall I prove my devotion?”

Warmth floods Dante’s chest until he’s bursting with it. His heart soars.

The fingers of one hand slide up his brother’s lapel, curling around the side of Vergil’s neck, feeling the strong pulse of his heart even through a layer of leather. The pads of Dante’s fingers caress the nape of his brother’s neck and he tilts his chin slightly, nose brushing against Vergil’s.

“You damn well better,” Dante says, trying to sound sour, but it’s not really working when his heart feels so full. “You got a lotta making up to do.”

“Would you really have gone home with that man?” Vergil studies him with lambent eyes, soft but intense. “Is a mediocre screw really worth sticking it to me?”

The words are sounded in the space between their mouths, and there is a low indulgence in them that Vergil does not try to suppress.

Dante’s weight is gratifying, an anchor to the moment. Vergil holds him as his battered body knits together, and there is a remarkable intimacy in that, and always has been.

“You might have killed him, you know,” he murmurs. “In the state you were in.”

Dante’s brows twitch together in the most minute of frowns.

The last thing he wants to do is actually talk about what just happened—especially when his body is still humming with the high of being so close to Vergil like this. When the soundless fury that had been mounting in him throughout their fight had only just dissipated, leaving behind a breathless warmth in its place. He’d rather hold onto that feeling, instead of being reminded of what had brought them to this moment, with parts of him still bleeding as his body slowly mends.

“Yeah, well, you didn’t have to actually stab me. But you did,” Dante mutters, trying to deflect the question and the conversation. He leans his head back enough to look his brother square in the eye. “Twice.”

“ _I_ might have killed him,” intones Vergil, in a gritted subtone, and this is probably closer to the truth. _In the state I was in_ remains unspoken. But it hovers all the same.

Vergil never did have a very high opinion of humans; let alone one that might have actually had the opportunity to bed his brother. And Vergil always was so viciously possessive of the things that he considered as _his_.

He cups the back of Dante’s head with his free hand and breathes out, steeping in their closeness. His lips draw absently along his brother’s jaw, letting the edge of his teeth just scrape the stubble there.

Dante’s breath quickens, his pulse surging, as Vergil’s teeth glide over his skin, his breath fanning warm against his face. His lashes droop instinctively, as his other hand tugs lightly at his brother’s coat, pulling him a little closer as his chin drops down, with the intention of wanting to find his brother’s mouth once more.

“I wonder, Dante,” Vergil says, before Dante can close the infinitesimal space between their mouths. “Do you think that I do this when I’m away? Take demon lovers to assuage my lust in absentia?”

Dante pulls back slightly, his eyes breaking away from his brother’s, as though such a simple gesture might stop Vergil from seeing what he’s trying to hide in plain sight—the sudden uncertainty, a flash of insecurity, glinting in his eyes.

“Well, I can’t blame you for having needs, can I, brother?” he asks with a wry half-smile, trying to sound like he really doesn’t give a shit, like the thought of Vergil touching someone else the way he’s touching Dante now doesn’t make his stomach twist, tempering the heat that had been an inferno inside of him just mere moments ago to something a little less devastating.

Vergil looks into his brother’s eyes, where their gazes mirror each other into an infinity. Dante’s gaze is vulnerable; wounded, beneath his cavalier attitude. Vergil knows this part of him well. He is always straddling the line between possession and protection, with Dante, with certain moments pushing the needle of the gauge in one extreme or the other. In the moment, it’s the latter.

“I don’t,” he says, as he runs his thumb along Dante’s lower lip.

His arm tightens unconsciously around his brother, as if to buoy him, even though Dante is stronger now—nearly healed, and capable of bearing his own weight.

“I have needs, yes, but I take myself in hand. I think of you, brother, and I burn them clean. And when it gets to be too much, when I’m going mad and I can’t bear another night without you, I come back. As I did tonight.”

The surprise in Dante’s eyes is unmistakable.

He had never imagined the possibility that Vergil would ever remain faithful to him; that he _wouldn’t_ seek out other avenues to satisfy the insatiable hunger that lies beneath. He had always thought he was but one of many whom Vergil shared his affections with; that he could never be enough to satisfy him. Surely if he did, Vergil would want him more. He wouldn’t disappear so easily.

He’d stay by his side, or take Dante along for the ride.

But more often than not, Vergil left without a single goodbye, leaving Dante aching.

The revelation is as much a benediction as it is a terrible truth that makes guilt rise within him as swiftly as a river in the midst of a storm, when he realizes that of the two of them, he’s been the one who’s strayed, taking other ersatz lovers to fill the void Vergil left behind.

“Shit, Verge…” Dante breathes out, his voice strained. “I didn’t know.”

“Do you doubt my self-possession?” Vergil’s smile is wry, and a little brittle.

Dante still leans against him, like a pillar he’s grown inordinately fond of, and Vergil makes no effort to dissuade him. It feels good, this holding, this intimacy, as if his body is slowly locking into his brother’s epigenetically, on a level that cannot be seen.

“I say this not because I expect the same of you,” he says, after a moment. “Our natures are different, brother. You burn hotter than I do. You are impetuous. Impatient. I don’t begrudge you your lurid dalliances with humans if it keeps you content.”

Vergil pauses, and his eyes glint, briefly, like anthracite. “Even though seeing it myself…” He shakes his head as if to clear the vision from his mind. “Affected me in ways I had not anticipated.”

His cock is still hard; intimacy does not temper his desire, but only makes it more ardent. It seems the greatest indecency, the ultimate erotogenic exposure.

“Still, you are mine, brother. See that you don’t forget it.”

All along, Dante had been searching for it— that sense of belonging he thought he’d lost in the fire all those years ago. He thought he’d never feel it again, what it’s like to truly belong to someone, and to have them belong to him in return. He had known it as a child, that feeling of wholeness. That wonderful sense of home.

But without Vergil there to complete him, Dante never thought he would be whole.

In the time since Vergil had come back into his life, he’s only ever been able to grasp that feeling in the fleeting moments when Vergil holds him. Moments of wholeness, when that ache in him dissipates, chased away by the warmth of his brother’s arms.

It’s only ever temporary. Vergil never stays, after all.

Dante was never sure how Vergil really felt about it, this thing between them that resists definition and transcends the boundaries of love. He had always thought that he needed Vergil far more than he was needed in return. That Vergil didn’t long for him the same way. Didn’t ache the way Dante always did when they were apart.

But then Vergil tells him that he goes mad without him.

 _You are mine,_ he says, and Dante reels, caught up in an emotion far too large for his body to hold. He feels it pressing up against the seams of him. Feels himself coming undone with it, a love so great it terrifies him, how deeply it consumes him. How easily he lets it.

Dante swallows hard, the fingers in his brother’s coat tightening.

“Well fuck,” he manages to say, “I guess I can’t really argue with that, can I?”

“You could,” Vergil intones, low, against his ear. “But you shouldn’t.”

He releases Dante only to pin him back against the wall, letting his knee slip between his brother’s muscular thighs. They are of a height once more, and it pleases him for it to be like this. He strokes the ends of Dante’s hair in his fingertips, slowly.

Dante’s breath hitches in his throat as the solid plane of his brother’s thigh rubs against the trapped bulge of his cock and presses into his balls. He shamelessly grinds forward, letting the weight of his balls crush down against Vergil’s thigh as the fingers that had been caressing the nape of his brother’s neck slide down to his hip.

“That man. What drew your eye about him?”

Vergil presses in, caging Dante with his body, gazing over his face before leaning in to kiss his neck, sending heat coursing through Dante’s body as Vergil’s hot breath steams over his skin, gooseflesh breaking out over his skin as his brother’s lips follow. Dante cants his head to allow him more access, eyes dropping to half mast as he pulls Vergil flush with a slight undulation of his hips.

The shift makes his pulse jump under Vergil’s lips.

“Is this what you wanted, brother? For him to take you right here, up against the wall? Or did you have something more...urbane...in mind?”

“I dunno, brother,” Dante says breathlessly. “Maybe I just li—liked his look.” His breath stutters as Vergil’s tongue sears over his skin, stoking the fire inside of him to a raging conflagration once more. “Wasn’t really thinkin’ bout much besides that.”

“Ah. So anyone will do.”

Vergil shifts, subtly, so that his cock aligns with Dante’s, and lingers there, feeling his hard flesh ache and pulse beneath the leather. His brother’s responses are the same in bed as in battle: vigorous and immediate; he is already stiff, wanton and ravenous.

It makes Vergil want to take him, right then and there.

But there is no luxury in back alley assignations, no elegance, no seduction, no surrender or supplication. That kind of brusque, perfunctory act does not suit his nature. It is a waste of his passions, which are there beneath his icy facade, albeit subterranean.

Dante seems to know this, as he makes no demands. In fact, he seems at something of a loss for words. Vergil is aware of humans passing by the alley, of the muffled, pounding music from beyond the door, of the stark and unyielding place they find themselves. Suddenly he wants nothing more than to be alone with his brother, behind a locked door. A sanctuary, an oasis. They can have this, he thinks. Not always, but now and then, if he’s careful.

Tonight, he needs nothing more.

“I came because I need you. Only you.”

Vergil has always known the best ways to sweep the ground right out from under Dante’s feet.

He’s merciless as always, catching Dante when he least expects it, delivering a blow that shakes Dante on the inside. It goes all the way down through him in a scorching streak of surprise, and just like that, there’s a blinding sunrise inside of him that burns away even the darkest of lonely nights.

It’s so rare that Vergil ever allows the ice he wraps around himself like armor to melt away. Even rarer, still, for him to _choose_ to be vulnerable, pulling down his endless walls. Letting Dante in.

His brother’s lips graze down the length of his neck and he shudders, his hand coming up to sink into his brother’s hair as he clutches him close, grateful that Vergil can’t see his expression, or the ocean that had suddenly found its way into his eyes. He closes them tight, holding back the overwhelming tide of emotion that is as much joy as it is love, trying not to lose his shit entirely.

Fuck, he really hadn’t expected that at all. Hadn’t thought it would affect him like this either.

“It was because he looked like you,” Dante whispers, the secret spilling out into the night. There’s a quiet quake in between the syllables. It reverberates down the line of his body as his fingers tighten in Vergil’s hair. “I chose him… because I needed you.”

 _But you weren’t there_ , he doesn’t quite say. Not that it matters now, when he has the only thing he ever truly wants in his arms.

At the words, something stirs in Vergil’s soul, deep down in the dead leaves. He exhales, slowly. “You have me.”

Surely Dante must know this. Surely it must be self-evident. Why does he look so conflicted? Why are the words so tremulous?

He feels Dante’s fingers in his hair, feels his body, his scent, his warmth, his solidity. His brother is a strapping vision of perfection, a beautiful, brash, clueless demigod, and Vergil cannot get close enough to him.

“I need to be inside you, brother,” he murmurs. “But not here.”

Dante’s arousal pulses strong in response.

“My place isn’t far.”


	3. Chapter 3

The walk back is agonizing. Every step makes Dante’s cock rub up against slick leather, and he’s nearly half out of his mind with need by the time they arrive at the front door of the apartment he’s come to call home. He fumbles with the keys and drops them, cursing under his breath as he bends down to pick them up, and then manages to get them into the lock. 

As soon as he manages to get the damn door open, he yanks Vergil in after him without any finesse, and turns to close the door, letting his back come to rest against its solid surface as he sets Rebellion aside and clicks the lock in place behind him. 

He levels Vergil with a look made for the night and a sly grin, reaching out to pull his brother towards him for a kiss.

“What are you smiling about?” Vergil mutters, but can’t hide a faint hint of an answering one. He goes at Dante’s urging, lithe and unhesitating, pushing him back against the door with sinuous menace.

“You, brother,” Dante responds, and his arms are around Vergil at once, encompassing, over-strong, familiar. Dante holds him like he will never let go; with a fervent power and the gravity of a supernova—his love is a juggernaut, a natural force Vergil finds harder and harder to escape each time he returns to him.

It is also sublime. Exquisite in a way he knows is non pareil, and he cannot cut himself off from this bond, much as he knows he should: to protect Dante—to achieve his objectives.

Longstanding targets that they are to the underworld, it isn’t wise for them to ever be together, especially not in a vulnerable way. Not until Vergil is a god. Lovemaking is the ultimate unguarded moment, and in the back of his mind is always a quiet terror that some powerful demon will appear and destroy them both while their attention is fatally compromised—locked on each other with the singular focus and epic intensity of their shared passion.

He allows that perhaps this is the way he wants to die, if it must be. But he resists this sentiment with all his power, as death is the ultimate defeat. 

He will not be defeated.

Dante’s lips are satin-like, at odds with his rough mien; full and lush against his own. His kisses are hungry and spread-mouthed, obscenely penetrating. Vergil allows this rough, clutching indignity, for he loves it.

He loves his brother.

He does not say so.

“I have amends to make,” he murmurs into the feverish press of his brother’s lips. “Where shall I begin?”

“This is a pretty good start,” Dante replies between kisses. His voice is low and husky, gone velvety with his lust, as he plunders his brother’s mouth with his tongue, chasing after the taste of him like he might never get to have it again. He kisses Vergil with a kind of fierceness that is consuming, licking between his brother’s soft, plush lips and slicking his tongue against the wetness of Vergil’s. His teeth tease at the sensitive flesh, making Vergil’s lips ruddy and as kiss swollen as his own.

Dante wouldn’t really mind having Vergil take him anywhere—right here against the front door, or bent over his desk, or on his knees on the pool table. Or in the intimacy of his bedroom, which only Vergil has ever been allowed access to. 

His fingers glide into the short hairs at the nape of Vergil’s neck, his other hand sweeping down the expanse of his back to knead at a hip hungrily. He gives his brother a playful nip, chasing the sting away with a brush of his tongue.

Vergil groans. Kissing is a sensual trigger that always undoes him, and Dante is unusually good at it. As in all things, his enthusiasm for the act is complete. It is both carnal and charming.

He grasps Dante’s lapels, eases his thumbs under and shoves them apart, exposing his brother’s well-wrought chest, warm and heaving and hard. He evades Dante’s semi-playful attempt to pull him in for yet another kiss, refusing to be distracted as he tilts his head to kiss his neck instead, as one gloved hand splays on his chest, slowly exploring a topography he knows almost better than his own.

Dante’s breath comes out of him in ragged pants and gasps as Vergil’s mouth works its way down the length of his neck and licks its way across his racing pulse. Unlike Vergil, who keeps his passions controlled in a tight fist, Dante’s eagerness is wild and open, his hunger for his brother shameless in how it expresses itself. He tilts his head, allowing his brother more access, eyes slitted and glazed with lust.

“Magnificent as usual,” Vergil murmurs, between searing kisses. He pauses to bestow a particularly reverent one on the artful rise of his brother’s collarbone. He tastes what must be his own blood, mingled with Dante’s. He returns to his mouth for a moment, then pulls back just enough to speak soft words onto Dante’s lips. “I’ve dreamt of your body every night.”

He reaches down and gives Dante’s straining bulge a hard caress with his gloved hand, drawing out a breathless moan from his brother as he grinds right into Vergil’s touch. Dante’s cock pulses, hard and ready, underneath the layer of leather that traps it. “I dreamt of this. Show it to me. Show me what’s mine.”

There’s something about the idea of his pleasure, his body, belonging to Vergil that makes Dante feel vulnerable and powerful all at once. 

Yes, he wants to say, as he shudders into Vergil’s expert, teasing hand, a moan caught at the back of his throat, hitched between two broken gasps of breath as Vergil’s fingers give his cock a squeeze in just the right way. _This is yours. Take it. You can have it all._

Dante’s fingers are clumsy and they fumble as they frantically work to undo his belt, his fingers regretfully knocking Vergil’s hand slightly out of the way as he unfastens his pants. The groan that leaves him is unapologetically loud as he drags his fly down over his cock, releasing the pressure of its leather prison. 

Almost at once, the musk of his arousal hits him—potent and raw. 

He’s so turned on that the leather covering his crotch has turned quite slick, suffused with the essence of his desire. 

“You want me to take it out too, or is that good enough?” he rasps out through pants of breath against his brother’s glorious mouth.

Vergil shudders. Dante’s penchant for wanton exhibitionism is certainly one of his better traits.

He pauses, sweeping his cool gaze downward, blatantly assessing. Dante’s big cock is fully flushed, tucked and barely restrained, curving outward, and almost bursting out of his open fly. He’s neatly trimmed, because Vergil likes him that way, glints of netherhair like frost around the root of his cock; flowers around a mighty oak.

Vergil feels a low pulse in his own, taut beneath the textured leather of his breeches. He can smell his brother’s arousal, his particular brand of male animal, and it goes to his head like an opiate. It’s very nearly mouthwatering. He is within a hair’s breadth of seizing Dante and sinking down his thighs, but he suppresses this impulse, subduing it under a dusting of snow. “Take mine out first,” he murmurs. Dante’s pulse jumps with a rush of excitement, as his fingers fly to his brother’s waistline, tugging him closer as he undoes Vergil’s belt, his eyes trained on the delicious prize just waiting to be unwrapped. 

His brother’s arousal is so pronounced that Dante can make out the shadowy shape of it through the fabric of his pants. He lets his fingers run over the thickness of it in a slow, reverent brush, wanting to give Vergil a generous squeeze of appreciation, but wanting more to feel him hot in his hand. He makes quick work of the fastenings of Vergil’s pants, and drags the zipper down. 

His brother’s scent rises swiftly, mixing with his own. It’s a dark, heady musk that instantly makes Dante’s mouth water with anticipation and makes his head spin with potent desire. 

He reaches in past the fold and _fuck_ , he can feel just how turned on Vergil must have been this whole time—the fabric inside is slippery and damp, slick like his own. And when he takes Vergil in his hand and pulls him out, he groans low as he watches his brother’s cock emerge—thick, flushed with blood, tantalizingly wet at the ruddy tip. 

Dante suddenly realizes that he needs to have Vergil in his mouth. To be so full of his brother, to know nothing else. 

“Shit, Verge,” Dante whispers, inebriated with lust for his brother as he gives Vergil a slow stroke. “Let me suck you. You look damn good.” 

The words are so earnest, so sincere and eager, that Vergil’s black heart flutters. Dante is never more beautiful than when he’s a slave to hedonism. He reaches out to cup Dante’s face in his hand, slipping his thumb between his brother’s unresisting lips. “Why brother,” he intones. “I thought you’d never ask.”

The hunger in Dante’s eyes is unmistakable. 

He gives a salacious lick of his lips, which turn up slightly at the corners, as he releases his grip on Vergil’s dick and slowly sinks down to his knees before his brother. Vergil’s hand in his hair is solid, steadying. Like this, Dante feels like he’s found an anchor in the wild, furious sea he’d been adrift in; suddenly, he’s no longer unmoored. His place is here, at his brother’s feet, drunk on his scent, breathing it deep into his lungs. 

Dante pauses to remove his gloves, dropping them to the floor, and then runs his hands up Vergil’s taut thighs in a long, sure stroke, relishing the topography of his brother’s well-defined muscles underneath his palms. 

He remembers the first time he had done this—how eager he’d been, desperate to take Vergil down. He’d rushed into it like he does everything in life, swallowing Vergil straight down, fighting past his gag reflex. It was messy and inexperienced and impatient, and though Vergil no doubt enjoyed it, Dante’s learned how to slow down and take his time instead of rushing towards the inevitable jackpot.

He lets his fingers caress Vergil’s cock in a slow stroke, dragging them up to the tip, then encircling the head and pulling back the foreskin as he squeezes his brother the way Vergil likes. It produces a lovely bead of slick oozing out from the tip and Dante can’t resist leaning forward to slowly lap his tongue over the emanation, eyes flicking up to watch his brother’s reaction, as he swirls his tongue around the tip. 

He wants nothing more than to feel Vergil hard and pulsing in his mouth, but he’s waited so long for this that he wants to savor every precious moment. 

“Yes, that’s it.” Vergil breathes out slowly, audibly, as Dante laves the bead of moisture from the head of his cock, demonstratively wanton about it. “Do I taste like you, brother?”

Dante resists the overwhelming urge to swallow down his brother’s cock the moment Vergil’s delicious taste floods his mouth. He’s raw and salty and bitter with just the right amount of metallic tang—it’s a familiar taste, one not unlike his own, but there’s a sweetness there that Dante lacks. A flavor that’s solely Vergil. 

He chases after it, letting his lips close around the head, flicking his tongue slowly over the swollen tip as his fingers stroke down the length of his brother’s cock. 

“ _Mmmnn…_ ” Dante moans around the hard cock in his mouth, then lets his lips pop off the end. “You taste way better.” The words are murmured right against slick, throbbing flesh, and with that, Dante parts his lips and licks a slow, hot trail down the underbelly of his brother’s cock, getting it nice and wet. 

“Ha.” Vergil’s sharp, soft interjection is involuntary and uninhibited. Dante’s technique is certainly nothing to be trifled with; he’s weaponized it, honed it specifically to Vergil’s personal desires. It feels better than anything he’s ever felt before. He curls his fingers into Dante’s lush mane, and wonders why he loves it so on his brother, but never himself. “No one knows me like you, brother.”

The same is true in reverse. 

No one quite knows Dante like his brother.

Maybe even better than he knows himself.

Vergil knows how much Dante needs this—how much it grounds him.

How much he revels in it, being able to please his brother. To have his approval, his undivided attention. To feel like he’s the center of Vergil’s world, and for a brief, shining moment, nothing else matters—not the threat of the underworld or the endless sea of demons that burst into life faster than they can be killed; not the rubble of their past, or all the years they had lost without the other; not the foolish, pointless quest for power that Dante will never understand when Vergil could have this, have him, on his knees with his mouth full of glory. On his knees with the most human part of him bursting with so much love, he doesn’t know what to do with it other than to let it out with a hungry moan as Vergil’s cock smears against his cheek on his way back up the length of him. 

Dante parts his lips and slowly takes his brother down in luxurious, unhurried strokes of his voracious mouth. His tongue caresses Vergil where he is most sensitive, teasing at his frenulum, swiveling in rough strokes around the head every time he pulls back out, swallowing him a little deeper with each bob of his head. 

Dante’s eyes flick up the length of Vergil’s body, drinking up the way his brother’s chest heaves with careful breaths; the way he tries to control himself, always so unwilling to let go. Always so unwilling to let the human part of him show. He probably thinks it’s the weakest part of him, something to be buried deep and controlled. Something he should kill. But Dante knows the truth—this is the most beautiful part, the part of him that is sacred, that knows love and can feel it. The part of him that dares to be vulnerable, that needs Dante, and can express that need out loud, right there in the open. 

Dante wants to see it, the moment when his brother lets himself come undone. When Dante wrests that control from his iron grip, yanks it brutally far away so there’s no hope of Vergil closing himself back in. Not when Dante has the head of his brother’s cock brushing against the back of his throat. Not when he eagerly moans, fingers curving around Vergil’s hips to encourage him to take what belongs to him. To fully claim Dante’s mouth, and breath, and all the love that he has inside of him.

Vergil gazes down, rapt at the sight. His loins pulse quietly, with thunderous hunger.

His brother is beautiful on his knees, like a penitent before his young god. He will never worship Vergil anywhere but here, but Vergil doesn’t want him to. Dante must be strong, worthy; an opposed and equal force. This is what makes his willing submission so precious.

Though his demeanor is often nonchalant and self-possessed, Vergil never takes this gift for granted. He places every indecent memory on the mantel in his mind, where he can always see and admire them.

“So hungry, brother,” he says, softly. “You’ve been starving, haven’t you?” Vergil urges Dante’s head down with a firm motion, as he starts to thrust. “Take it all.”

Vergil’s fingers tighten in Dante’s hair and Dante groans as he finds his throat filled with the hot, hard flesh of his brother’s cock. Forcing him to swallow Vergil down to the very root, until Dante’s nose finds itself nestled in a thatch of coarse silver hair. It takes away his breath. Makes all of him burn in the most delicious way as he relaxes his jaw and lets Vergil use him like this is what he was born for—kneeling before his brother and taking his cock down his throat. 

The slick mixture of precum and drool slides down his chin as Vergil starts to fuck, and Dante moans as the burn in his lungs travels up through his throat and reaches his eyes, making him tear up from the pressure. Salt trails carve down the sides of his temples. Dante’s eyes slit with pleasure as he clutches his brother’s thighs, his own cock pulsing painfully in his pants, desperately slick with the product of his lust. 

He could probably come like this, if Vergil let him—with his brother’s cock down his throat and all the breath in his lungs offered up as sacrament. 

Vergil isn’t holding back now; one hand braced against the door, fist wrapped in his brother’s wintry shag as he thrusts punishingly into the hot, wet, wanting sleeve of Dante’s willing throat.

He is aware that he would hate this act, were it done to him, but Dante, as always, is nearly ecstatic; his hands on Vergil’s taut and flexing thighs and backside are alive with lust, grasping hard enough to leave bruises that will disappear as soon as his fingers relent.

“Would you have done this for him?”

Dante makes a sound that’s decisively a _no_ , in between a wet gasp of breath a second before Vergil chokes his throat once more with his cock. 

It’s not his instinct, to do this. He does it because Dante needs, because Dante will be pleased, and because it pleases Vergil when Dante is pleased. Something in him longs to give his little brother everything he wants, even as every impulse urges him toward self-preservation and denial. Still, he would be lying if he said there was no pleasure in fucking his brother’s face with total abandon. His balls are aching, tight and heavy beneath his cock; they strike Dante’s full lower lip and slickened chin as he drives himself to the hilt.

“Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo,” he whispers on the ragged edge of his breath, quoting Catullus. Dante won’t know its origin, but he’ll get the message. “All because I love you, brother.”

It was storming the last time Dante heard Vergil say those three sacred words. 

Thunder shook the foundations of their home, rattled the window panes. 

And there, underneath a roof hiding him from the furious sky, was a small boy who cried into his brother’s neck, clinging to him ferociously, terrified that if he opened his hands and let him go, he’d lose the other half of him. 

Promise me you won’t ever leave, he sobbed brokenly as his brother held him close and sheltered him in his arms. 

Of course I won’t. It was just a stupid dream, his brother reassured, but the boy wouldn’t feel safe until he could hear the promise out loud. He may have only been eight years old, and that wasn’t very big at all, but even he knew that words held power.

I promise, then, his brother said, and that made him feel safe, and warm, and the thought of losing his brother wasn’t quite so terrifying anymore, because Vergil had made a promise, and Vergil would never break his word. 

Outside, the wind roared and lightning carved its way across the sky, and in the press of darkness, with Dante’s tears drying on his skin, Vergil said, I love you. Just like that. And at the time, Dante hadn’t known that it would have been the last time he heard it before everything he had ever known and loved was taken from him. 

Along with his brother, who ended up breaking his promise after all.

Maybe Dante should have held him a little more tightly.

Maybe he should have never let him go.

That had been ten years ago.

He held onto it, the memory of it, when he had nothing else. When he no longer had a brother to hold him, to tell him that he was loved. When all he had was the feeling of it, of what it was like to have once been whole. 

Remembering was how he managed to survive. 

When he had nothing else to live for, he had the memory of his brother to keep alive. 

Ten years without him, without hearing his voice. 

Ten years without hearing him say I love you, and Dante thought he’d never hear it again. 

But here he is, on his knees before his brother, worshiping him with his mouth. On his knees before his brother, and Vergil says I love you and the words shake Dante to his core, and breaks him open where he is soft and unguarded and vulnerable and fills him with the most dangerous emotion of all—hope. 

It rises up into his eyes, an entire ocean welling up inside, pouring out of him and down his face, and he’s grateful that he’s got Vergil’s cock all the way down his throat. Grateful that he’s choking on it, because Vergil won’t be able to tell the difference. It’s not very sexy, sure as hell isn’t the kind of thing that would turn Vergil on—his younger brother crying on his knees like a little bitch, all because he was told he was loved.

Vergil doesn’t like to see tears in Dante’s eyes, never has—even when he knows they’re from eagerly choking on his cock, and not choking on misery. Still, the sight disturbs him. Tears are anathema to devils. Tears are a human weakness.

He wants to wipe them away, hastily. Kiss them away. Taste them. Take them into himself, and away from his brother.

But Dante wants to be on his knees, wants to subsume himself in this way, wants Vergil to be the instrument of his subjugation, and so he gives him every inch of himself, as hard and rough as he can. 

And soon enough the friction does its trick; the slick taut pressure and hot slide of his brother’s passive tongue and the blunt, relentless abutting of Vergil’s cock hitting the back of his throat.

But what tips him over the edge is the look in his brother’s eyes. Even through the tears, they are horrifically full of love.

Vergil feels himself groan, and everything in him clenches down hard. Then he is erupting against the back of his brother’s throat, hot and thick, filling it with his essence in bolt after bolt, as pleasure rings soundly through him.

“Drink, Dante,” he manages to murmur. “Swallow every drop, like a good brother.”

Vergil is beautiful when he comes—eyes closed, head tilted back, the flush that momentarily flashes up the column of his neck. The way his hips stutter, fingers tightening in Dante’s hair. The way he _sounds_ —his breath ragged, voice rough. The way he loses control—enough for a fissure to form in the armor he always holds around himself; enough for Dante to see that glorious glimmer of something vulnerable and raw. 

He loves seeing Vergil like this. Loves more, the way Vergil claims his mouth, and this moment, and lets himself go just enough. Loves too, the taste of his brother’s seed as it coats the back of his throat, the feeling of it enough to make Dante moan, to make arousal spike even through the flood of emotion that had left him feeling torn wide open. 

He focuses on that bit of heat, lets it overtake him, sinks into it as he draws out just enough to be able to get his mouth around the head of his brother’s cock so that he can suckle properly, tongue massaging as he hungrily swallows down every delicious drop of Vergil. Pumping Vergil’s wet length with his fingers, to milk him dry. 

When the last of it slides down his throat, Dante gives Vergil one last, slow lick, and then lets Vergil’s cock slip out of his mouth. Vergil’s cock rubs wetly along his cheek as he careens forward, forehead finding a resting place against his brother’s thigh. He pants raggedly and tries to catch his breath, glad for the excuse so that he doesn’t have to show Vergil his face just yet. Glad that he can swipe at his eyes with one hand as he clutches at his brother’s leg with the other to keep himself upright. 

He needs a minute. Just one. 

In a minute, he’ll think of something terrible to say. Something absolutely filthy, something that might just get under Vergil’s skin the right way. 

But it isn’t like him to be so quiet. 

Even in the gilded aftermath of climax, Vergil notices that much right away. Gazing down at Dante, who is cleaving to his thigh like a post in a hurricane, he is aware that something is awry.

Usually his brother is all too pleased with himself, flush and wanton and eager to look up and gloat over his subversive victory.

But now his head is bowed, and he is uncharacteristically silent. Perhaps even stricken, though Vergil cannot imagine why.

“Was I too rough?” Vergil asks, after a moment.

He reaches down, and slips his fingers under Dante’s chin, intending to gently lift his face. He meets slight resistance, and frowns.

Vergil pauses. “Stand up and look at me, Dante.”

Dante nearly curses under his breath when he realizes that he must have given himself away somehow. He knows that tone of voice, knows that Vergil must have figured something out. Maybe Dante should have just said something lewd instead of taking the time to try to catch his breath, and now he’s gone and ruined this moment for his brother. Shit.

He takes a bracing breath, and then looks up, giving Vergil a satisfied, lazy grin as his fingers curl around his brother’s hips, using them as leverage to rise. “That sure was some great dessert, brother,” he says as he gets a foot flat on the ground and then pushes himself up, trying to ignore how weak his knees suddenly feel. “Too bad that’s all you had. Was hopin’ for something a little more…” he pauses for emphasis, wagging one of his eyebrows suggestively. “Filling.” 

He hopes, with every part of him, that Vergil can just let this the fuck go, so they can go back to tearing each other apart the _right_ way.

“You’re quite mistaken, brother.” Vergil leans in to slowly kiss the taste of himself off Dante’s flushed and abused lips. “That was but an appetizer. I thought you knew me better than that. I would never deign to offer you any less than a formal menu, replete with multiple courses.”

He pulls back and regards Dante for a moment, pale eyes intent and searching. His brother is too cavalier; hectically so, even for him. Vergil studies his face as he reaches out to brush the water away from Dante’s eyes with his knuckles. It is a tender, gentle sweeping—first one, then the other. Vergil’s blood is still there, has mingled with the tears.

“But perhaps a respite is in order.” He pauses, reaches down to where Dante’s broad cock still strains against his open fly, caressing it idly, firmly, possessively. The smooth heat of his brother’s intimate skin is a luxury against his palm. And judging by the moan rolling past Dante’s lips, and the way his eyes roll back as he presses forward into Vergil’s touch, Dante certainly appreciates the attention. “Shall we bathe together?” he murmurs. “Like we did as boys?”

“A bath?” Dante rasps out, his voice rough like his breath. “What’s wrong, Verge? Can’t handle a little blood?” 

He doesn’t want to stop. Not now. Not when he has Vergil’s cool fingers touching him right where he wants the most. Rest isn’t what he needs right now—it’d give him too much space to think, and thinking can lead to disaster, especially when it comes to him. He’d much rather stand in this moment with his brother; revel in the heat.

“Very well,” says Vergil, grasping Dante more surely, both cock and fly. He’d planned to fuck his brother senseless after laving him all over, but Dante does not seem to grasp the indecent intentions behind his nostalgia.

Dante is not a creature of nuance and insinuation, but blunt-force innuendo.

“Come, brother. I have a mind to play billiards.”

He turns away, then glances back.

“And by that I mean, screw you until you scream for me.”


	4. Chapter 4

It’s rare that Vergil ever says anything so crude. But when he does, it’s always as surprising as it is hot, and its effect on Dante is as powerful as the fingers grasping his cock. His lips twitch up in an excited grin, even as his breath comes out of him in staggered gasps as Vergil’s fingers tighten around his length. 

“Thought you’d never ask,” he murmurs, moaning low as Vergil gives him a forward tug by the crotch. He staggers with the wordless command, trying to modulate his breathing as best as he can as he’s led to the pool table by the cock, relieved that Vergil seems to have decided to move on. 

Vergil knows something has shaken Dante. He does not know precisely what, and asking will, of course, net him nothing. Despite the fact that Dante seems more than favorable now—the iron-hard cock in Vergil’s grip can attest to that—he also knows his brother. Inside that careless facade he is trembling like a leaf.

That matters not; Vergil knows how to still his soul.

The pool table is full-sized, ridiculous, extravagant. Vergil would go so far as to say tacky. He’s not much for beer-hall chic. Billiards in a proper gentleman’s club or study, he could perhaps see, but here it is just one more testament to Dante’s enduring love of frat-house decor.

He steers Dante back against it, giving him a bruising kiss, and a fond, rough squeeze for good measure. It provokes a lovely, rough gasp from his brother.

“Lose the coat,” he drawls. “On second thought, lose it all.”

Dante hums a low, pleased sound against his brother’s mouth, and lets his tongue brush against the seam. “I like it when you’re demanding,” he confesses between kisses as he undoes the leather band across his chest and pulls the buckles loose. 

With a careless shrug of the shoulders, Dante peels back the fabric of his coat, letting it fall from his body in a cascade of crimson fabric that pools around his ankles. He carefully pulls Ebony and Ivory from their holsters and sets them aside, then toes his boots off, kicking them off carelessly, before his hands slide to his waistband and he slowly pushes down the thick fabric. 

The friction over his cock is enough to make Dante groan as slick fabric slides down. He hisses slightly between his teeth as cool air hits his arousal when it is finally freed. Shit. He didn’t really think this through. Maybe he should’ve actually taken a step back instead of going in for a kiss, because now he’s going to have to find some way to make taking off his pants look good for his brother when he’s only inches away. 

Maybe he should’ve put on more of a show. Given Vergil a little dance. Throw a bit of sizzling, stylish showmanship into it. Turn it into a smoking sexy strip tease.

Instead, he’s pigeonholed himself into having to slowly shimmy out of his pants, though Vergil’s mouth being so close is at least a consolation that Dante takes, indulging in a slow, simmering kiss. Which he’s going to have to break at some point, if he’s to bend down to get his pants the rest of the way off. 

Smooth, Dante. Real smooth.

He gives Vergil a small nip and an impish grin before he bends down to push his pants past his knees enough so that he can step out of them and kick them aside. 

Dante’s tempted to get on the pool table and strike a pose that would make the likes of those fancy painters Vergil seems to dig _weep_ from the beauty of it all. But somehow, he has the feeling that Vergil wouldn’t really appreciate it all that much, so instead, he reaches out for his brother’s hips to pull him close. One hand goes to tug at the silk at Vergil’s throat. “You’re a little overdressed, brother.” 

“I’m always overdressed,” Vergil says dryly. “It’s kind of my thing.”

Dante frowns and pretends to pout. “I thought _I_ was your thing.”

A beat passes, and Vergil’s taut lips betray a faint, shadowy smile. “So you admit it.”

Dante is manhandling his ascot, but this is nothing new. He assents, and assists, tacitly, where needed. Otherwise he allows these impassioned explorations. He has always enjoyed being disrobed by his brother, on some level. It reminds him of the way Dante opened gifts as a child.

He was always so excited, so happy to receive.

He still is.

He lets Dante unwrap him, but only so far. The coat, he can take. The vest, he struggles with as always, until Vergil intervenes. “There’s a trick to it,” he murmurs, as he steals primacy from his brother, consoling him with a kiss as he undoes the fastenings with deft, practiced hands. Now he is half-dressed, in his breeches and booted to the knee, his chest bared in the low light.

He runs his palm over his brother’s naked body, slowly and appraisingly. “Let me look at you, brother,” he whispers, deep in his throat. “Turn around.”

Vergil’s eyes brush over the length of him, and Dante feels it like his touch. His pulse surges with it, anticipation bright and fluttery in his chest, as he rolls his mouth into a sumptuous smirk and lets his lashes drop to half-mast. 

If Vergil wants a look at him, Dante intends to give him a good one.

Slowly, he turns as commanded, making sure to keep his spine straight, letting some of his weight fall a little more heavily on one leg as he cocks his hip out a little. He knows the kind of vision he can create for Vergil—his brother always seems to enjoy it when he plays a little more demure, and he does this for him now, glancing over his shoulder as blades of silver fall into his eyes. 

He widens his stance and arches the small of his back just enough to let his ass roll towards Vergil. “Like what you see, brother?” 

Yeah, Dante knows how to play it up.

Vergil feels himself stiffen under his breeches. He breathes out, slowly, audibly, letting it live in the stillness. Dante plays the wanton well; it’s part of his insolent charm. In spite of his lifestyle, his skin is perfection—blightless and smooth over well-wrought muscle, stained by the slightest flush of arousal. His physique is more beautiful to Vergil than any sculpture. The hair that hangs in his eyes is alluring, disheveled by their passion. He is dangerous and ludicrous and exquisite and Vergil feels a surge of unnamable emotion, a black hurricane in his chest—lust and devotion and adoration and possession.

Outwardly, he is smooth and composed, in a way that belies this sudden inner turmoil.

He runs a gloved hand slowly down Dante’s back, from nape to sacroiliac. “I love what I see,” he intones. “And I see what I love.”

Vergil’s hand is grounding, anchoring the wild storm that suddenly bursts its way back into Dante’s chest, stealing the breath right out of his lungs. He’s struck silent, struck dumb, filled with the feeling of it, which presses outwards and fills him in and makes him feel like he’s on _fire._ It burns right up his neck and settles into his cheeks, a lovely red that practically makes him _glow_. Makes something bright glint in his eyes again, too. 

Fuck, he doesn’t know if he’s embarrassed or if he’s happy or a combination of the two, and that doesn’t really make sense at all, because it’s _Vergil_ , and Dante has nothing to be embarrassed about when there’s nothing about him that Vergil hasn’t seen, and doesn’t already intimately know. 

When there’s nothing about him that doesn’t belong to his brother. 

Maybe it’s just hearing it out loud. Those words. 

(Because even when he was eight years old, he knew that they had power.)

Ten years was a long time to be without his brother’s love.

And now that he has it, undeniably so, Dante doesn’t even know what the hell he’s supposed to do with that kind of power.

There’s a sudden knot in his throat.

Dante has to swallow around it. 

“Verge...” he breathes out, his voice a little softer than the usual brashness he might’ve otherwise hit back with. But something about it, the way Vergil said it, makes Dante feel like he simply can’t take this lightly or brush it off. He can’t turn it into another lewd one-liner, complete with a shit-eating grin. _This_ , he has to hold onto. 

Vergil deserves that much.

He turns around to face his brother once more, reaching out to pull him close. Dante raises a hand and lets his fingers run reverently over the beautiful, sharp line of Vergil’s jaw, thumb caressing his brother’s cheek as he falls into the endless sky of his eyes. “I love you too,” he tells his brother quietly.

Vergil is utterly still for several moments, staring into his brother’s unguarded gaze. He is silent for so long that Dante’s brow begins to crease, nearly imperceptibly.

The embers in Vergil’s cold soul stir and ignite at those few and rarified words. Inwardly, he is staggered by his own response, and how easily that artless, tentative admission from his brother’s full lips brings him to his knees. Outwardly, he is galvanized, can only act.

He seizes Dante, then moves in like winter and kisses his brother’s succulent mouth with everything inside him. “You grew up well, brother,” he whispers darkly, as their lips part, only to meet again. “My love, my other half.” 

It’s utterly shocking, how violent a feeling like love can be.

Dante can’t stop the gasp that flows between their mouths, or the earthquake that suddenly forms inside of him, shaking all the way down the length of his spine. It unleashes everything within him that he had tried so desperately to get back under control—a feeling that is as terrifying as it is exhilarating, as fulfilling as it is devastating, glorious and wonderful and bright and breathless and god—if there even is one at all, one that’s merciful—Dante loves him, loves his brother, _loves_ so deeply that he wonders how it’s even possible to be so full of an emotion and know nothing else. 

To have nothing else, other than the feeling of it—the warmth of it, the heat of his brother’s breath, the taste of his tongue, the strength of his arms that can crush a demon to death or hold together the pieces of a younger brother who’s slowly coming apart. 

There’s a sea in Dante’s eyes and salt on his tongue and emotion glints bright at the corners of his wide-eyed gaze as he pulls back in surprise and stares in awe and adoration at his other half. _His other half._ Fuck. 

Dante’s fingers shake.

He takes a ragged breath. 

And then he dives, dives deep, mouth hungry and desperate as he claims his brother’s mouth. Hands grasping, pulling Vergil close. Needing to feel him, his warmth, his skin. Needing to taste him, to have him as close as he can be. 

It’s not enough. Dante _needs_ to feel him more, to have him inside, buried so deep maybe he’ll never leave again, and maybe Dante will never be without the part of him that makes him _alive_. 

Because the truth is, he doesn’t know how to really live without Vergil there to give him breath.

“ _Please._ ” Dante’s voice is small, so quiet it’s barely even there, trembling in its need. He’s begging. It’s pathetic. For once, he doesn’t care. “Fuck me.” 

Vergil’s heart thuds quietly in the wake of the request.

“Of course, brother,” he says, softly, against his brother’s shaking lips, and presses a slow, reverent kiss there. It is almost chaste in commission, but not in sentiment. The weight behind it is staggering, and almost makes him shudder. “You have but to ask.”

He is raw and unvarnished now, and that is why he confesses the truth that Dante has never realized—that there is nearly nothing Vergil will not grant him if he asks. It is beyond him to refuse his little brother anything. The quips, the ripostes, the jibes, the insolence—all these make it easy to deflect. He is powerless against Dante’s earnestness, as he ever has been, ever since they were but children.

It is a good thing it emerges so rarely, that Dante is so sardonic. That he has become cynical. He does not realize how to weaponize his sincerity. Vergil shudders as he thinks of how hamstrung he will be if Dante ever truly understands the depths of his devotion.

“But not here.”


	5. Chapter 5

It isn’t far to the place Dante sleeps, the bedroom at the top of the old staircase. Vergil puts an arm around him, almost fraternally, and leads him there. With his arm slung around his brother’s thewy shoulders, he is reminded of how equal they are, in every aspect; different, but complementary, like a well-matched team of thoroughbreds. Dante seems almost drunk, letting his head fall against Vergil’s shoulder; nuzzling him sensuously; hazed and hedonic.

His eyes are glazed and unfocused, foggy with emotion and desire.

Everything feels a little surreal, the edges blurring like watercolor. The only thing that’s in clear, sharp focus is Vergil—the wonderful smell of him, the flesh and blood of him, the gravity of him— how it draws Dante to him, orbiting around his sun. 

The door to his bedroom falls open and they step through together, and Dante finds himself drawn to the bed by his brother, who is silent and solemn and intense as the first snowfall.

Vergil takes off his boots, deliberately, leaning back against the door. All the while his eyes are locked on his twin brother, standing stripped and shuddering and silent; admiring his perfect physical symmetry in the moonlight. Dante waits for him by the bed, surprisingly docile, returning his gaze a thousandfold, his own almost dazed.

Vergil straightens, whipping off his belt and scabbard. He swiftly shucks the slim textured leather of his breeches, which he folds absently and leaves on the scarred, worn top of the low dresser. Another time he might have thought twice, as Dante has almost certainly not dusted at any time in the recent past, but his mind is beyond the care and upkeep of any possession beyond one. 

Special measures are required when little brother is sad.

Though he is not exactly sad right now, thinks Vergil, eyeing him. It’s some close, enigmatic, unnamed cousin, the unvarnished emotion that Vergil sees in these eyes that match his own; eyes that had followed his movements hungrily as he undressed, his desire openly on display, his eagerness shining through the haze of his eyes. 

Vergil is naked before his brother now, unapologetically stiff and flushed with arousal, the tip of his cock almost amaranthine, like a jewel veiled by the velvet foreskin. Yamato is resting against the dresser, and he pulls her from her sheath with a faint, insinuating smile, as he draws his palm over her paper-thin edge with a flourish. A beat later, he bleeds immediately, profusely. The wound is already knitting an instant later, but he has tithed enough for his purposes.

His blood has a potent, enthralling power over his brother. They had discovered it by chance some time ago, after a particularly brutal fight that had left Vergil’s front drenched in his own blood. When he slid his cock, slick with traces of his blood, into his brother’s body, Dante helplessly surrendered himself to it—wantonly, desperately. It was as though Vergil’s blood inside the most intimate part of him had unlocked a transcendent, unearthly pleasure that was all-encompassing; more intoxicating than any drug. 

Gone was the brashly crafted veneer Dante so often held between them like a shield; the weaponry of his impertinent mouth and roving hands became soft and yielding, breathtakingly vulnerable, as he bared the truth of him and unconditionally offered himself up for the taking. 

It was the most beautiful sight Vergil had ever beheld.

He strokes himself, once, twice, slowly, spreading blood over his broad length—his gaze never leaving Dante’s. The slickness that beads from the tip is copious and immediate, mingling with his blood, making the glans glisten wetly. It attracts Dante’s eyes almost immediately, drawn south with an unnaturally powerful magnetism that has his lips parting in anticipation, his tongue unconsciously slipping out to wet his lips as he inhales a short, sweet breath of excitement. 

He goes to Dante, who stands still as prized livestock, shuddering like a game and powerful animal. It must take all of his self-control to not simply launch himself at Vergil, to stand so still and at the ready, to not fall into his usual nature of charging ahead without another thought. It would be so easy—too easy, in fact, for Dante to drop into his careless swagger, his easy grin. To make a comment meant to incite—or inspire—action. 

But he resists the urge, holding his tongue and forming his body into a trembling stillness, waiting patiently for Vergil, when Dante is anything but. His haunches are not unlike a stallion’s, and Vergil runs a hand over the firm globe of his ass as he comes around behind him. He wraps well-cut arms around his brother’s strapping chest and leans in, letting his hard cock rest promisingly in the cleft of Dante’s ass; it is deliciously easy to do this, given their equal height, and perfectly matched morphology. Dante’s shuddered breath is accompanied by a slow rock of his hips that has Vergil’s cock nestling just a little deeper, as his head rolls back onto his shoulder, the lines of Dante’s body conforming to Vergil’s.

Vergil kisses Dante’s shoulder, just beside his neck, and murmurs the words into his hair: “Come sit on your big brother’s lap.”

The bed is just behind them, and he draws Dante with him as he sits down on the edge.

There is a mirror positioned directly before them; it captures the way Dante’s mouth slants slightly with a mild smirk of amusement as he glances over his shoulder at Vergil, allowing himself to be directed. 

“Y’know… I’m gonna need a bit of help with that. It’s been a while,” he admits, as he backs up and lets his hands run down his sides to his ass, which he grips and brazenly spreads wide as he lowers himself over his brother’s lap, as Vergil guides his cock to his entrance. 

One hand steadies and braces Dante at the hip, the other holds his own cock in place, letting it notch into the fault of soft, cryptic flesh that is his brother’s most intimate place. Vergil can be no closer to him, ever, than this, and he craves this closeness every waking hour, no matter how well he sublimates his emotions and crushes his tells.

He grasps his cock—in a far more brute, efficient way than he ever holds his sword—holds it firmly angled, upward. He can hear Dante’s breath, labored by lust and excitement, feel the heave of his back, brushing Vergil’s chest and making his nipples rise into small, taut peaks.

He breathes out, narrow-eyed and pleased, as his brash, beautiful brother lowers his godlike body on to his hard, upthrust cock without the slightest hesitation. As the head begins to spread him, Dante rips out a curse.

_“Fuck!”_

It burns like lightning racing through the core of him, an exquisite, intoxicating pain that has Dante panting as his brother’s cock rips him wide, tearing him open with the penetration. 

It’s agonizing and perfect and so fucking good that Dante shakes with it as Vergil’s blood sinks deep into the torn parts of him—and he feels it, feels his brother deep in him, buried inside his body, coursing through his veins, Vergil’s blood slamming through him like an indomitable tidal wave. It crushes down on him and sweeps him off the earth, drags him into its staggering rip tide and into the rush and vigor and hot pulse of his brother’s life force. 

Dante feels like he’s drowning, suffocating all at once, and opens his mouth to drag in a breath, but what comes out instead is a keening moan that is as desperate as the way his hips attempt to roll. 

This—this is what he’s wanted, what he’s needed for far too long, to have his brother inside him, to have nothing separating them at all. To have Vergil bury himself in him and make him whole. 

He comes alive with it—these moments when they’re together like this, when he’s so full of Vergil, of his cock and his breath and his blood and his scent and the way he feels when he’s connected to his brother in this deep, primal way. When his entire world narrows into the space of his brother’s arms around him. When all he has to breathe is his brother’s air. 

Dante’s head rolls back against Vergil’s shoulder, his body quivering with raw, unfiltered need and commingled power that has his skin breaking out with a sheen of sweat, that has him panting, already toeing the white hot edge of orgasm from just having Vergil deep inside him. His hands slide from where he’d been holding himself spread, and he turns his face towards his brother, his mouth trying to seek a kiss. 

Vergil bends his head like a sparrowhawk making a kill, and meets his brother’s mouth in a hedonistically clumsy crush. There is something obscenely pleasing about the awkward angle, as their tongues slide sidelong, Dante fully settled on his cock and leaning back against his body—the weight and the warmth and the breadth of him.

Vergil breaks the kiss and raises his eyes deliberately to the mirror. Dante immediately tries to reclaim his lips, but ultimately follows his gaze, his eyes unfocused and heavy lidded. “See yourself, brother. Where you belong.”

Vergil reaches around Dante to grasp and slowly spread his strong thighs. Now his cock is just visible, the bare, thick root where it conjoins them, buried deep, shoved up inside his brother to the hilt.

Dante can’t stop the whine that leaves his throat as his gaze washes over what he sees in the mirror but can barely even comprehend—himself, spread wide and impaled on his brother’s thick cock, which glistens obscenely with blood where it protrudes from his stretched opening. His lips are kiss swollen and parted for breath, his eyes hazy and lustblown; there’s a high flush on his cheeks that runs all the way down his neck to his chest, which glistens with a thin layer of sweat. He’s so aroused that his cock is flushed dark in the dim light, rising hard and straight before him, precum dripping down the shaft. 

Vergil’s eyes burn into his own in their shared reflection, predatory and dark, breathtakingly possessive. Startlingly beautiful in their claim over him, in the way they look at him and tell him that _this_ is where he belongs—split apart by his brother’s cock pulsing deep within him, trembling in his arms. 

Vergil feels a shudder pass through his brother, and it feels alchemical, transmutable. His blood is causing a riot inside Dante’s body; a carnal insurrection. He can feel the thrum in his cock, he can sense the sudden lustful frenzy in his brother’s physicality.

“Do you see me deep inside you?” Vergil runs a hand down his sculpted chest, pausing with his palm over Dante’s taut lower abdomen, which hitches underneath his touch. “Tell me where you belong. Tell me whose you are.”

What resistance to such a demand Dante might have had has been burned right out of him by the overwhelming heat of his brother’s cock throbbing deep inside of him; by the hurricane of his brother’s blood that tears straight through the soul of him, that rips down the walls he’d built around himself and leaves him bare before his other half; open and wanting and breathless and needy and willing to be honest—honest in a way he never fully is when honesty can be so very dangerous. When Vergil could use it and cut him deeper than Yamato’s Judgement could ever hope to reach.

But in this moment, spread wide open around his brother, filled with so much of him, Dante is raw and defenseless, and all he can do is drag in a shaky breath as his thighs tremble and his cock pulses and floods with heat, slick dripping down his shaft in thick, clear rivulets. And he looks at himself, and he looks at his brother, at the eyes that hold him and look at him like he’s something precious; something worthy of love and devotion; something that belongs to Vergil, who is as beautiful as he is ruthless, as cruel as he is selfless, terrible and wonderful and everything Dante wishes he could have forever. 

For an eternity, if such a thing were possible.

Dante thinks he can feel his brother’s heart beat inside him. It makes his own roar, a wild thing in his ears, as the blood in him stirs, and need—sudden and merciless and brutal—rips through him with so much force, it makes him reel. He can barely hear his own voice beyond the deafening thunder of his heart and the rush of _want_ in his veins. It twists a low whimper out of him from being spread open like this, forced to look at himself, impaled on his brother’s cock, but not fucked the way he _needs_. 

“You,” he pants out, breathlessly, “I belong… to you.” 

Vergil groans at the words. “Yes.” They fall sweetly on his ears, in spite of the raw carnality of the current moment. “Yes, Dante. You are mine. Now and forever.”

He begins to move, slow and grinding, working himself deep and high within his brother’s tight, hot sheath. The sensation is staggering, but he holds himself above it. He must not cede control, even for a moment. 

Dante surrenders to it completely, his moans ringing out loud and unabashed as pleasure ripples through him, coursing bright and hot inside of him as Vergil drives in deep. His hand reaches back and curls up around the nape of his brother’s neck for _something_ to hold onto as his hips undulate in synchronicity with Vergil’s, gasping roughly as Vergil pumps his hips up and drives straight into the core of him. 

Vergil lets his hand run up Dante’s chest to his neck, holding it with tender violence, reinforcing his gaze, keeping it trained on their reflection. “Do you see?” he whispers, lips grazing the shell of Dante’s ear. “You are never more beautiful than when I’m inside you.”

Perhaps it isn’t true. Dante is always beautiful. But the words seem to stir him.

They draw out a low, keening moan as Dante shudders around his brother’s cock, body clenching around what fills him as he rocks with Vergil’s slow rhythm, watching the way Vergil looks at him in the mirror—his eyes filled with an aching reverence. Like this, he can almost _feel_ beautiful, like he’s being remade, reworked into something glorious for his brother, molded around his cock. 

He wants to feel more of it, to be taken apart by it, so that the pieces of him can coalesce into something fully formed with his brother deep inside of him, pounding him into the shape of someone Vergil would never want to walk away from. 

“Please…” It’s a plea, wanton and unashamed—Dante needs more than just this slow, deep rutting. He needs to feel the violence of his brother’s claim on him, viscerally. He reaches back with his other hand, curling it around Vergil’s shoulder for more leverage. His toes spread against the floor, and he arches his back and rocks down hard, groaning as his head rolls back with his eyes as heat stabs straight through him.

Vergil grits his teeth. Dante’s strong body undulating against him is unthinkably erotic, almost unbearably so. He wraps an arm around his brother’s chest and presses his face into his sweat-slicked back. A ghost of its salt seeps over his lips and onto his tongue when he presses a mindless kiss there.

Little brother wants more. Always more.

Vergil holds himself back, because there is so much more. He always has more. More to give, more inside, locked behind a corridor of doors, like Bluebeard’s gold, and his lake of tears, and his lake of blood. Dante knows this, and is relentless as Judith.

And Vergil cannot deny him, not when he’s like this—overcome and wanton, at the mercy of their bodies and blood, and the sanguine cocktail Vergil has given him like a hotshot. He runs hard hands over his brother’s chest, reforming, adoring, worshipping each working knot of muscle.

Then he moves his hands down, bracing Dante at the hips, holding him fast. With a sharp cry, Vergil lets himself go, at last, pounding into his brother, battering him mercilessly.

The cries that rip through the air are guttural, animalistic. Tearing out from a dark, primal well buried deep. 

Dante loses himself in it, in the brutality of it—the inexorable wave that is his brother which pounds, pounds, _pound_ s through him so hard he feels like he’s being torn asunder. Vergil reaches into the deepest part of him and buries himself there, drives in so violently that it’s all Dante can feel—the wonderful, dark pulsing friction of his brother’s hard cock pressing up through his core, as his body opens up, desperate to swallow him whole. Dante’s cries are wracking sobs of pleasure that ring out as his blood _sings_ , and his cock weeps, and his body shudders. His asshole convulses, clenching tight around what fills him, wanting it deeper, always wanting _more_ because he can never get enough of everything that is his brother, and the sublime pleasure of sacred wholeness which is ineffably glorious and more powerful than even the birth of the universe. 

There is freedom in the violence, in the transcendence of his surrender, as he gives himself up fully and recklessly, and falls into the ecstasy of his brother’s embrace. Falls endlessly into a heaven he can brush with his fingertips. He is before his god now, wrapped up in his arms, feasting on the scent of him, made holy by his touch; and Dante worships him with his body, his heart, his half of a flawed soul that only finds grace in these moments when he fully lets go. 

“ _Hahh! Ahh—! Vergil—Verge—”_ It’s barely even words, barely there, the syllables broken and choppy and lost between growls of inhuman pleasure as Dante fucks himself wild on his brother’s cock, meeting him stroke for stroke, frantic and desperate and god— _there is a god; his name is Vergil_ —he’s coming already, coming far too soon when they’ve only just started fucking, a violent eruption that has him screaming as he shakes and shakes and shakes with it, hot, thick pulses of cum shooting out of him and streaking across his chest and jaw. It’s so good and so perfect and it goes on and on and on, but Dante’s still so terribly hard and wanting, even as he floats through an ocean of pure, white sensation; blissed out and utterly euphoric. 

His head lolls back, arms slipping uselessly to his sides as all he can do is ride the brutal wave.

Dante’s climax hits Vergil like a sledgehammer. His brother is out of his mind, a writhing Roman statue come to life, thrashing like a dying demon. Vergil tries not to let himself be moved, but his blood is resonating; a struck bell at the top of a tower, emanating down through the lower quarters of a city. It strikes a low tone somewhere in his primal core, and suddenly he feels a disorienting rush he is coming to know all too well.

He is triggering; there’s no way around it. No way around it but through.

“Dante,” he manages to whisper, a vain warning as his raw silk voice turns to sandpaper. His arms lock around his brother, holding him fast, as his demon rips through him.

The smell of brimstone fills his nostrils, mingling with the aroma of blood and musk and sex, all of which intensify, blooming unchecked. A surge begins in his core and shatters outward, reforming him, re-minting his body in its most primal form. He feels elated, invincible, as once-dormant power gathers to a head and explodes from every molecule.

He feels himself change inside his brother, growing, pushing the boundaries of what a human can take. But Dante is not human, he reminds himself, as he clenches his teeth against the sensation. It is a relief that gives him peace, an eye in the storm. His body arches as the transformation reaches its peak, sparks and lightning chasing over every taut and straining muscle.

Vergil throws back his head and _roars._

All the while, Dante _screams._

His body is no longer his own. It is no longer even a body anymore. It is a vessel, a temple to hold a god, a sanctuary for power, stretching out inside of him, filling him until he’s certain he’ll burst with it. His brother’s cock is suddenly far too large, tearing through the softest parts of him—agonizing and terrible and brutally beautiful; a fire in his belly, a war in the blood. He’s hammered apart; broken and gasping wild, raw air that tastes like burning cities and blood red skies and tender, violent nights. 

He hears within him cathedrals at dawn ringing; the sound of his brother’s voice transmuted into a deafening roar that crests higher than the sun. There is power flooding through him—unfathomable, incomprehensible. It electrifies every molecule of his being, explodes within him like a supernova. 

It’s the most violent pleasure he’s ever known.

It triggers something deep inside of him. 

Something primal and dark. 

He can barely recognize the sound of his own voice when it roars out of him with another orgasmic surge that has him shockingly coming again, as his body struggles against the storm raging inside of him. He’s delirious with it, high on the pain and the pleasure of his brother’s claim, and can barely understand what it is that he’s seeing when he opens his eyes through the red haze and sees himself held by a magnificent beast with opal scales and majestic curving horns that sit atop his head like an infernal crown. 

He’s in the arms of a demon. 

The very thing he’s tried to kill his entire life. 

There’s a devil buried deep inside the most intimate part of him, his massive cock heavy ridged and thick, slick with ichor and blood—throbbing, throbbing, throbbing as Dante feverishly moans as wave after wave of cum spurts out of him.

He tells himself that this can’t be real. He’s dreaming—he has to be.

He should be terrified, but all he can feel is awe, as he stares at a pair of glowing cerulean eyes set in an obsidian face that he instinctively recognizes as Vergil. And he looks at it and he thinks to himself, _brother, you’re beautiful._

There is no part of Vergil he wouldn’t embrace; no part of his brother he wouldn’t love with every shred of his being. No part of himself he wouldn’t surrender completely.

Including his own humanity—which sloughs off his body as his nails lengthen to claws, red scales half-forming on the backs of his hands. His eyes glow with primal fire, mouth filling in with razor teeth, as preternatural heat expands within him, lightning racing over his skin with his brother’s cock pulsing deep within. 

There is a brutal clarity to being in the grip of the devil trigger. It is not a hazy hedonism, but a sharp, hungry one; one with absolute clarity of purpose. It is the water-tower view, seeing all things from on high, and wanting all of them at once.

Vergil grasps Dante’s thighs and lifts him off his cock, manhandling him with ease. Judging by the inhuman sound of disappointment this evokes, he is not pleased by this development, but as Vergil has told him all too often, patience is a virtue, and good things come to those who wait. He refuses to believe this, no matter how many times he is shown, but it can’t hurt to prove it again.

Vergil stands—rises effortlessly, even with his brother’s full weight in his arms. He turns Dante and shoves his back against the wall, buckling the plaster, bracing the thighs his brother is too limp and mindless to support, spreading them obscenely as he returns to his brother’s body with a roar. 

He slips inside more easily now, but there is still the violent friction of Dante’s body frantically healing around him as his brother lets out a keening wail. 

There are garbled syllables there, ones that almost sound like Vergil’s name, but they’re lost to the rapturous cries that tear from Dante’s throat as he can do little else but surrender. He surrenders to the magnificent devil that is his brother; surrenders to the overwhelming pleasure that vibrates through his body; surrenders to the hot pulse of the watercolor world that blurs out of focus around him; surrenders to love—deeper than any river and more violent than any war. 

Love, which tears down the boundary between the two halves of one soul.

He has never felt more at peace than in this moment, as he takes into his body the part of his brother that isn’t human. As he lets himself be swept away by it—falling into an unearthly ecstasy, filled deeper than he’s ever been filled before. 

He whimpers as the ridges of his brother’s slick cock rub relentlessly against the molten heat inside him, humming with an infernal power that sends sparks of lightning flying through him with each brutal thrust. He’s burning up, filled with his brother’s presence and his cock; body screaming as it tries to accommodate what simultaneously splits him and tears him apart, as claws rip through his skin and his brother pounds him raw. 

The pleasure is so exquisite and intense that it’s agonizing, and he’s sobbing with it, tears hissing as they evaporate when they meet his burning skin, and he’s forced closer and closer to the painfully blinding edge of another violent orgasm. 

“Vergil,” he cries out, as his shaking, clawed hands frame his brother’s demonic face and he looks at him with awe and unconditional love shining in his eyes.

“ _Dante_ ,” Vergil says, urgently. There is a demonic edge to the words, but he is still Vergil, and this is the love of his life.

It will not be long now; his arousal is nearly unbearable. The trigger is reaching its zenith, and his thighs crackle with power as he thrusts into his brother, sparing him nothing. When he comes, it is a bolt to the loins and temples; a gathering of doves scattering into the sky in a cathedral square. A blast that shakes the sanctuary inside him and the heavens without. He throws back his head, frozen in the moment, every muscle flexed in stark relief. Sparks and brimstone fill the air. The scent of infernal flowers blooms in the room; an inverted beatification.

His issue is viscous and copious, breaking free of the seal between them, rolling down his thighs in twining tributaries. He shudders at the sensation, and Dante cries out as he’s filled past the brim with it. His eyes roll back and he seizes wildly around Vergil’s cock, the shockwave of his own orgasm tearing through him with so much destructive power, it shatters the demonic patina on his skin and wipes out his vision. 

Dante’s entire world pulses with bright white light. 

Darkness follows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading! Sorry we haven't been able to get back to comments on Chapter 4 just yet -- a lot's been going on in our lives. We'll definitely respond soon, and we really truly appreciate everyone who takes the time to read and review. <3 Your support means a lot. 
> 
> Also, for those of you wondering, Dante half-triggered, like he does in the manga.


	6. Chapter 6

Dante comes back to the world in pieces, sleep rising from him like curling smoke. 

There is warmth all around him, and he’s floating, anchored in place by the scent of home—and Vergil.

He almost doesn’t want to open his eyes. He’d dreamt of his brother. Dreamt that he’d held him, made brutal love to him. That Dante had gazed upon his demonic visage and loved him; surrendered himself to him fully. He dreamt his brother burned himself into the deepest recesses within him—and wrote his name inside of him so that Dante would never forget to whom he truly belonged. 

He dreamt his brother told him that he loved him.

That he needed him.

It was a wonderful dream, and not one Dante wants to ever wake up from. Maybe if he keeps his eyes shut long enough, he can fall back into it. He can have Vergil again, solid and real. Taste his sweat and breathe in his scent and offer himself up all over again.

Maybe if he never wakes up, Vergil will stay.

Warmth shifts around him, a moving thing that slides all over and slips across his skin. There is a slow, soothing brush of something soft gently whispering across him, and Dante remembers that he has a body, groaning when he rediscovers it in all of its aching, terrible glory. 

It’s hellish, trying to open his eyes, which feel weighed down by lead. 

He grunts unhappily, squinting blearily as he manages to blink them open, and is immediately disoriented and confused.

He sure as fuck isn’t in bed. Or on the couch. Or in his chair behind his desk.

He’s in a _bathtub_ , and the bath is actually nice and warm, and— _oh._

Dante’s eyes fly wide open with a sharp inhale as he realizes with a start that Vergil had been holding him this entire time, tenderly washing his chest with a washcloth in a bath. 

It hadn’t been a dream.

Vergil is really here. 

Relief floods through him like sunlight breaking through the clouds after a storm. 

Dante’s heart is suddenly so full, as he relaxes in his brother’s arms and turns his face to gently nuzzle at Vergil’s jaw.

“Welcome back,” drawls Vergil, softly. “I thought I’d lost you.”

He dips the washcloth in the water again and resumes the slow circles. Water trickles down the intricate knots and planes of his brother’s torso and he watches it obliquely, idly enjoying the sight. He’s no longer washing away the traces of their misdeeds, but enacting a careful, unhurried ritual. His body cages Dante’s in a relaxed but encompassing way, arm wrapped around him, letting his brother lie back against his chest. In the aftermath of orgasm, when he’d come to his senses and his devil trigger was receding, he’d realized he was suddenly holding all of Dante’s weight, that he’d fallen forward over Vergil, limp and insensate.

His first thought, oddly, had been white, cold, blind dread. These were uncharted waters and terra incognita. He wasn’t even fully in control of his own devil trigger, and he’d certainly never triggered in the act like that. He said his brother’s name, quietly, then with more urgency. There was no response. Had he done something irreversible? He knew Dante’s body would heal, but what about his mind? He put his head to Dante’s chest and heard his heartbeat, strong and steady. His breath stirred the hairs at Vergil’s temple.

He’d carried Dante to the bathroom, set him gently down against the wall where he sprawled slackly as a giant, muscular doll, and run a hot bath. Dante’s bathtub was rust-stained and could have been cleaner. For a moment he debated scrubbing it, but when he glanced at Dante he saw gooseflesh on his arms, so he’d sighed and turned on the tap.

“The things I endure for you, little brother,” he murmured, as he let it fill. He sat on the edge of the tub, with only a little trepidation about what unseen horrors he might be setting his nether-regions on, and let his fingers stroke his unconscious brother’s hair.

When the tub was full, he’d lifted Dante in, and sunk down into the steaming water behind him.

Dante had been unconscious for some time, but his breathing had been slow and calm, and his heartbeat had been steady and sure when Vergil checked his pulse. There was nothing to do but wait for him to come around.

Now Dante is awake, and apparently aware enough to remember and respond to him. The light brush of his brother’s lips and nose and jaw against his own is both soothing and stirring.

“Did you have nice dreams?”

“Yeah,” Dante admits, his voice like gravel. “I was dreaming ‘bout you.” 

He yawns and then graces his brother’s jaw with a sleepy kiss. 

“Gotta say I’m disappointed, though, Verge,” he continues, throwing a bit of levity in his tone, his mouth curving with mischief against his brother’s warm skin. “Did you really think you could kill me with your dick?”

“I don’t think there’s a dick out there that could kill you, brother dear.” Vergil’s voice is arid as a desert, but he smiles where he knows it can’t be seen. He dips the washcloth and runs it slowly over Dante’s shoulder, squeezing warm water over him.

He shifts his body to cradle his brother more fully. His cock and balls are pressed against Dante’s sacroiliac. It feels indecently intimate. “Are you warm enough?” He paused. “You had the chills...after.”

There’s something about Vergil’s tone that doesn’t sound right.

There’s a hesitation that shouldn’t be there at all; a ripple in a smooth lake that travels all the way to the shore. 

Dante’s brows draw together as clarity starts to ease in past the comfortable haze that had settled like morning dew on blades of grass at dawn. He remembers the pleasure, the way it had shattered him to pieces. How deeply he could feel Vergil. How full he still is with him.

Remembers too, the fever dream of glowing eyes and razor claws and being torn apart by his brother’s cock. His brother, who had become a demon, yet Dante loved him still. 

He had thought it was an effect of the blood, an infernal trip that had him hallucinating some seriously weird shit. But, judging by the fact that he actually passed out after coming, and can still feel a burning ache deep inside, maybe it wasn’t just a product of his imagination.

 _I thought I’d lost you_ , Vergil had said. 

Dante suddenly realizes what that ripple in Vergil’s lake had been—fear. His brother was scared that he’d lost him. Scared that he’d done something unforgivable. 

It makes everything within Dante grow still.

Shit. 

He hadn’t actually imagined it all. 

It really did happen—all of it. His brother had somehow turned into a demon, and fucked the living daylights out of him. 

And he loved every second of it.

Dante finds Vergil’s free hand underwater, and weaves their fingers together. He draws his face back just enough so that he can lay eyes on his brother. “I’m okay,” he tells him softly, giving Vergil’s hand a gentle, reassuring squeeze. “What… happened?” 

Vergil’s gaze is guarded for a moment. “A mistake.”

Dante frowns, his brows drawing together as he shifts, ignoring the sharp stab that sears straight up his back. He turns to look at his brother, taking in the armor Vergil’s hastily drawn around himself. 

As though he needs to protect himself from Dante.

Or maybe he thinks he needs to protect Dante from himself. 

“Vergil,” Dante says quietly, water beading from his hand as he lifts it up and takes his brother’s beautiful face in it. “I don’t know what the fuck just happened… But I can tell you one thing—it sure wasn’t a mistake.”

“That wasn’t supposed to happen,” Vergil says, his voice more subdued than usual, but with a taut granite undertone. It’s not a sentence he has said often; perhaps even never before. “Hence, it’s a mistake.”

Dante is staring into his eyes, searching them, looking for answers he is loath to give. But his brother will press, inexorably, until Vergil either caves, or absconds. Even in this tamed and tempered state, where his hands and gaze are hazed and soft.

“Father wasn’t human, Dante, and neither are we.” He looks into Dante’s identical eyes, warm and liquid where his are distant and unsure. “At least not entirely.”

Dante’s hand on his face is comforting, and he leans into it, slightly, without realizing it.

“There’s a demon in you too. I felt him.”

For a moment, Dante falls quiet, contemplative. He lets his thumb run over the high cliff of his brother’s face in a tender caress meant to soothe the distress he sees in Vergil’s eyes. “The night in the catacombs… right before we reunited... something like that happened to me, too.”

He remembers the rush of primal power surging from a bottomless abyss; remembers standing on its precipice. He’d seen parts of himself shed humanity before—his hands transformed into claws, his body humming with preternatural power, as he stood knee-deep in blood in the catacombs. He’d felt something similar earlier tonight, in the moments after his brother’s demon emerged. 

It had been visceral and confusing, and he had been too delirious to notice any physical changes. 

But, that feeling—it was the same. 

“It wasn’t complete. I thought it was some weird demon shit that was happenin’ cuz of all that blood down there,” Dante continues. “But my hands changed and I felt… well, pretty damn invincible…” He pauses, searching his brother’s eyes. “Was that the same thing?”

Vergil averts his gaze, looking down. “Very probably. I don’t know what else it would have been.”

Dante is acting like someone who actually wants answers, who cares enough to study life. It’s a little unsettling. He’s not used to a brother who doesn’t shrug off demonic intrusions into everyday life like he’s shedding his coat. On the floor, of course.

“I’m sorry to be the one to show you what we really are. What father really was. Especially like that, with no preamble.” Vergil pauses, speaking the next words around a stone in his throat. “And I hurt you.”

Dante looks at Vergil quietly for a long, hard moment, taking in the lines of penitence he reads written across his brother’s face. It’s not a good look on him—an aching vulnerability that feels a little too much like shame.

Part of him is tempted to say something terrible to get a rise out of Vergil, but he’s never quite seen his brother like this before. Then again, it’s not like Vergil has ever turned into a demon mid-fuck. He’s not sure if his usual brand of cavalier bullshit would actually work, even if it were crude and dripping with innuendo. 

Dante sighs, his hand slipping to curl around the nape of his brother’s neck, tugging him down until their foreheads touch. He relishes in their closeness for a heartbeat, then leans in and steals a soft kiss. “Don’t be sorry, brother,” he murmurs against Vergil’s mouth. “I’m doing just fine. You didn’t really hurt me…” He pauses, letting the corners of his mouth slide up a little. Letting a touch of brashness slide in. “Well, I guess my ass is killing me, but it’s a good hurt. You gave me the best fuck of my life. I fucking came like…shit, I don’t even know how many times.”

Vergil’s face is slate. “Why are you such a slut?” he asks, after a beat. “Mother didn’t raise a slut.”

He lets it sit for a moment, then cracks a dry smile. It pains him a little.

His brother rolls his eyes good naturedly and grins. “Hey, at least I’m _your_ slut.” 

Dante’s lips against his, chaste and understanding, are more of a balm than he expected, more than he knew he needed. He closes his eyes and savors the weight of his brother’s hand at the back of his neck.

“I’ve been thinking,” he says, after a moment. He had been thinking, while Dante was dead to the world, about all the things he’d be willing to give in order for him to be all right. “Perhaps I could stay for a week. Here, with you. That is, if you’d have me.”

Dante’s eyes widen in surprise. 

Vergil rarely ever stays more than a day or two. 

Sometimes, just a single night.

A whole week with him would be a small slice of paradise. He’ll be able to fall asleep in his brother’s arms, with the security of knowing that Vergil won’t be gone in the morning. That he’ll still be there the next day, and the day after that. 

And while seven days isn’t very long at all in the scope of their lives, it’s still more than he’s ever been able to get with Vergil since they reunited. 

Dante’s heart soars and a smile spreads across his face, bright like the rising sun. “Me casa, su casa. Stay here as long as you want.” 

Forever, he wishes desperately. 

In response, Vergil reaches for the water. He cups it in his hands and carries it up to Dante’s head, wetting his silvery hair. He does this again, then reaches for the shampoo bottle, glancing at the label before squeezing a measure into his palm. “This shit’s full of sulfates,” he mutters. “No wonder you have split ends.”

He starts to massage it into his brother’s scalp, with firm, strong fingers. He acts, for lack of anything else to do. He feels Dante ease back against him; little brother enjoys being indulged. He knows this, and he redoubles his efforts. They are silent for a while, Dante leaning back into his hands with a contented sigh. There is nothing but their breathing, the warm silence of Dante’s unconventional home, and the soft shifting of water lapping against porcelain.

“It was really the best fuck of your life?” Vergil asks, after a moment.

Dante huffs an amused breath. It’s rare that Vergil is ever anything less than completely self-assured and overconfident. It’s part of his assholeish charm that Dante finds equally as appealing as it is infuriating. 

But moments like this are special—when he can hear the slightest note of vulnerability sliding between his brother’s syllables, when Vergil drops his impenetrable walls down and lets Dante in. 

Dante certainly doesn’t want to squander it, so he turns and looks at his brother with a head full of shampoo and says, “Yeah, Verge. It was honestly… incredible.”

“If that’s true, it’s only because it was you,” says Vergil, after a moment. “Dip your head.”

It’s what their mother said when she bathed them. Dante is as indoctrinated by the past as he, and immediately leans back into the drink so that Vergil can work the suds out of his hair. The arch of his neck and body is decadent, erotic, and Vergil gazes at that as he rinses Dante’s wayward mane of bright platinum.

“There,” he intones, as he urges Dante up once more. “Now you’re presentable.”

He says this, but his brother is definitely not presentable—not with that indecently sated expression, not gloriously and unselfconsciously naked, carved like a marble statue. Not with the wet, gleaming hair that clings sensually to his face and neck.

Vergil combs it aside with elegant fingers, out of his eyes. “And what if it never happens again? Is it only my demon you desire?”

A scoff of righteous indignation makes its way out of Dante’s mouth.

He can’t honestly believe that Vergil could even think such a thing—that Dante would only desire the demon part of him; that it isn’t, in fact, all of Vergil that he loves. But just as soon as the rising tide of incredulity crests within him, it finds itself crashing down when he turns and sees the look in his brother’s eyes. 

There’s a slight fissure in the smooth surface of Vergil’s gaze; a silvery crack so fine it would’ve been easy to miss it if you didn’t know what to look for. But Dante sees it as clear as day—a flicker of fear, of uncertainty, like a flash of lightning across a clear blue sky. 

His brother is actually worried that now that Dante has had a taste of the intoxicating raw power inside of him, he no longer wants—or needs—the rest. After all, Vergil has never had any love for his humanity, believing it to be weak. Failing to see the beauty in it that Dante has always embraced. 

“Vergil,” he says quietly. All ten of his fingers frame his brother’s gorgeous human face, just like he had earlier, when he held a demon in his hands. “I don’t just love part of you. I love _all_ of you. So, I don’t really care if it never happens again. As long as I get you here, just like this.” He lets the fingers of one of his hands gently caress the contours of his brother’s face, sweeping sensually across the mouth he loves so much. “Sure, it was the best fuck of my life, but I wasn’t just talking about when you turned into a demon, brother. I was talking about everything that came before that, too.”

Vergil’s eyes narrow. “I can do better,” he says. He is only very slightly joking.

He studies his twin brother’s face for a sustained moment, seeking something to belie his romantic words, a glimmer, however faint or cryptic, of insincerity, but he finds nothing in the familiar lines of his own face but raw sincerity; Dante is incapable of doing anything at any dynamic other than forte.

“Just think. If you’d actually gone home with that epigone, you’d have missed out on all this.” He says it dryly, but the cool smile that follows is rare and conspiratorial.

Dante groans and rolls his eyes. “Ugh, don’t remind me.” 

Dante has turned in his arms, and it makes it a simple thing to lean in and touch his own lips to his brother’s, though nothing is ever really simple with Vergil. He does it, feeling Dante’s hands clutch; immediately impassioned, and perhaps there are worse things in heaven and earth, he thinks, than being loved to death.

“Dante,” he intones, as his brother brings their brows together. He seems suffused with contentment; it radiates, as much as his anger did before. He hums a vague affirmative; he is listening, but only idly.

“I believe I need you now. The way you needed me.”

Dante looks at his brother, and sees a quiet vulnerability in his eyes. It’s the kind of vulnerability just waiting to be held. Tenderly, with both hands, and feathersoft kisses that feel like absolution and love. 

Vergil needs it, to know that he’s truly forgiven, that he hasn’t really hurt his little brother—at least, not irreparably. He needs Dante to plunge himself deep inside him. Needs that unearthly, primal connection that can only be achieved when they reach apotheosis together, one locked inside the other. Sacred and profane and wonderfully whole. 

Dante’s eyes soften as a gentle smile curves his mouth. He leans in and kisses his brother, tender and slow and sweet. “Of course, brother,” he whispers against Vergil’s mouth. “You only ever need to ask.” 

**Author's Note:**

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